


The Sweet Taste of Pomegranate

by gateship



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, F/M, M/M, Missing Scene, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, because they live in a dystopia and it's not referenced enough, i never watched anything after that so it doesn't exist in this, nobody actually eats any pomegranates in this, sort of slow burn but they're together for the majority of this, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:46:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 125,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gateship/pseuds/gateship
Summary: Soulmates. Soulmarks. Everyone has one, but most people on the Ark never find theirs. There are angry rumors that it's to keep the stations apart, to keep Alpha and GoSci separate from everything and everyone else. Other whispers talk about one person decades ago falling deeply into grief when the Chancellor at the time floated their soulmate, so deeply that they tried to kill the Chancellor and were floated as well. It's only when a spear pierces Jasper's chest that Clarke starts to think that maybe there's another reason why people don't find their soulmate on the Ark.Earth is nothing like what she expected. River monsters, acid fog, a coalition of Grounders, Mountain Men. But she also never expected a soulmate like Bellamy Blake.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 307





	1. Chapter 1

Soulmates.

Such an interesting and potentially beautiful concept, yet such a complicated matter. Especially when you lived on a space station with less than a thousand people.

It wasn’t exactly a taboo topic on the Ark, but it wasn’t something people talked about that much either. Soulmates rarely matched with one another and couples who didn’t match could and did make it work. Rumors circulated that it was to keep the stations apart, but Clarke privately thought that they didn’t have the luxury of soulmates when they were trying to keep the human race alive.

Before the war and their isolation in space, soulmates had been a prominent part of society. Her father told her fairy tales of two souls finding one another, of Prince Charming finding Cinderella first through a shoe and then through their matching marks. Of Ursula fooling Prince Eric with a false mark while Princess Ariel longed to tell him the truth. Her mother hadn’t exactly liked that he told her those stories before bed when she was younger.

Historically soulmates hadn’t always found one another. Distance, death, social standing, homophobia, and countless other reasons had kept soulmates from one another. It wasn’t like soulmates without matching marks weren’t a thing either. But with such a limited population of people to search through on the Ark, everyone should have been able to find their soulmate. So Clarke could understand the rumors about keeping the stations separate.

(She doesn’t know, no one will ever know, that in another universe where there aren’t any soulmates, things go very differently. But here, the little mark on the front of her hip and so many others like it change everything.)

-

She hadn’t had time to process seeing her mom for the first time in a year or what she’d said about Earth before she’d been knocked out. Waking up strapped into a jump seat next to Wells had been an unpleasant shock and not something she wanted to deal with. So when she heard someone shouted about the door, she took off. They couldn’t open the door to the outside world. It wasn’t safe.

“No! We can’t just open the doors!” she called as she hurried down the ladder, leaving Finn and the two dead boys.

As she climbed the ladder from the second floor down to the first floor, she heard one of the boys say, “Hey, just back it up guys,” and hoped there was some other reasonable person there. When she glanced over she saw a boy – early twenties maybe? – in a guard’s jacket with slicked back hair.

_They sent a guard down with us?_ she thought. If the Council was going to send a guard down, why hadn’t they sent Sergeant Miller? Nate had been arrested after her, if what she’d heard through her door was true. It made more sense to send a guard related to one of them, someone that they might trust. But maybe the others would trust a cadet more than a parent?

Then he raised a hand for the door lever and she called, “Stop!” She dropped down the last few rungs as everyone looked at her and she pushed her way through the other kids. “The air could be toxic.”

“If the air’s toxic, we’re all dead anyway,” he said. Up close, she could see that he probably wasn’t much older than her. Also, he did have a point. They couldn’t all stay in there.

“Bellamy?” a girl asked from the crowd behind them.

The guard – Bellamy apparently – turned, eyes searching the crowd. A smile grew as the girl who’d spoken moved through the crowd. Clarke heard someone whisper about the girl under the floor. The girl moved to stand in front of Bellamy and he was fully grinning.

“My God,” he said. “Look how big you are.” The girl threw her arms around him and he hugged her back, tight.

“What the hell are you wearing?” she asked when the hug ended. “A guard’s uniform?”

“I borrowed it to get on the Dropship,” he said defensively, though a with a trace of uncertainty too. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.” The girl hugged him again and Clarke started to think that she’d figured out who the two were.

Her parents hadn’t thought she’d been listening when they talked about the Blake case almost a year ago, less than two months before she’d been thrown in the Skybox. They probably hadn’t thought she was awake, even. But she remembered hearing about Bellamy, Octavia, and Aurora Blake. There was no way he was a guard. He’d been a cadet a year ago, but he certainly wouldn’t have stayed that way when Octavia had been found at the Unity Day dance.

As the siblings hugged again, Clarke noticed something, or rather the lack of something. “Where’s your wristband?”

“Do you mind?” Octavia asked, turning to look at her. “I haven’t seen my brother in a year.”

“No one has a brother!” a boy shouted.

“That’s Octavia Blake!” a girl called. “The girl they found hidden in the floor!” The crowd started murmuring. Bellamy looked wary and Octavia looked pissed.

Octavia lunged, but Bellamy caught her in his arms. “Octavia, Octavia, no,” he said. “Let’s give them something else to remember you by.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Like being the first person on the ground in 100 years,” he said, smiling. Octavia paused and they both turned to face the door. Bellamy reached for the lever and Clarke’s stomach jumped.

_Please don’t be toxic. Please don’t be toxic._

The door opened, air blowing into the small space due to the pressure change, and light – actual daylight, not artificial light! – spilled in around the edges of the door. The door descended, turning into a ramp as Clarke’s eyes adjusted. Then, a breeze. An actual breeze.

There were trees, standing tall and green and red and yellow. There were leaves and ferns and plants all over the ground, rocks and dirt. Clarke didn’t now where to look first.

Octavia took a few hesitant steps out of the Dropship, Bellamy watching her proudly. Octavia walked the rest of the way down the ramp door, pausing at the edge. She hopped down the last bit to land on the dirt. Clarke looked past Octavia to the trees. It was so colorful, colors like she’d never seen before. And bright. The Ark was dark, grays and blues and dingy. This, this was so…awe inspiring.

She wanted to draw.

Octavia raised her fists in the air as she shouted, “We’re back bitches!” That seemed to set everyone else off. Shouting and cheering, the kids all began rushing out of the Dropship, streaming into the woods. Clarke herself took a second to look for the supplies Jaha had promised, finding a map. She grabbed it and headed out herself. When she jumped down and touched the Earth for the first time, she couldn’t help but smile. She was here, on Earth. She wished and wished her father could see it. But she would finish what she started. They’d been sent down to prove the Earth was survivable. They could and would survive on Earth or the human race would die out.

But to do that they needed supplies, so she needed to figure out where the Mount Weather bunker actually was. She walked away from the Dropship and just chose a direction to see if she could get a good vantage point to see out. She never imagined she’d live to see so much green. And it was October, which meant it wasn’t even as green as the Earth would be in the Spring.

She found the top of a hill not far from the ship, the land cutting off and sharply going down quite aways. She unrolled the map, thankful that she actually remembered how to read a topographical map. She looked over the land she could see – was that snow on the mountaintops!? – and compared it to the map in her hands.

Shit.

“Why so serious, Princess?” Finn asked as he walked up behind her. “It’s not like we died in a fiery explosion.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see he was smiling at her. She ignored it. “Try telling that to the two guys who tried following you out of their seats,” she said.

“You don’t like being called Princess,” he said after a moment. “Do you Princess?”

No, but that wasn’t the point. “Do you see that peak over there? Mount Weather,” she said. “There’s a radiation soaked forest between us and our next meal. They dropped us on the wrong damn mountain.”

Finn actually looked concerned. “What do we do?” he asked.

“Find a way to get there,” she said and turned back to the Dropship. She was pretty sure she knew where they were, or at least close enough, to plot a course to the mountain. She was using the dropship’s ramp as a table to do just that with the graphite chunk her mother had smuggled to her while she was in the Skybox when Wells walked up behind her.

“We’ve got problems,” he said. “The communication system is dead. I went to the roof, a dozen panels are missing. Heat fried the wires.”

Damn. As long as everyone kept the wristbands on, the Ark would know they could survive. “Well, all that matters now right now is getting to Mount Weather,” she said. “See, look.” She turned back to the map and showed him. “This is us. This is where we need to get to if we want to survive.”

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Wells asked. Her jaw tensed and she didn’t answer. “Your father,” he said, shoulders slumping. He didn’t have the right to look sad. Not when he was responsible.

“Ah, cool, a map,” someone said behind them. Clarke turned to see the kid with goggles from the second floor of the dropship. “They got a bar in this town? I’ll buy you a beer.”

Clarke’s nose wrinkled in distaste and Wells grabbed the other boy’s arm, forcing him to step back. “You mind?” Wells asked.

Clarke rolled her eyes and turned back to the map. How long would the journey take? Earth Skills taught them that before the bombs went off, walking speed was about three miles an hour. But they’d never had to deal with walking over hills and mountains. Also, the gravity felt different, which as she thought about it, made sense. If the Ark kept the gravity lower than Earth’s it wouldn’t need to expend as much energy maintaining it. But it was going to make things difficult.

“Hey, hey, hey,” another voice said. “Hands off of him.” Clarke looked over to see a group of nine boys walking their way. The one in front was talking. “He’s with us.”

“Relax,” Wells said. “We’re just trying to figure out where we are.”

“We’re on the ground. That not good enough for you?” Bellamy asked, standing a few yards away from them with his sister.

Wells paused. “We need to find Mount Weather,” he said and started walking towards Bellamy. Clarke followed. “You heard my father’s message. That has to be our first priority.”

Bellamy looked down as Octavia said, “Screw your father.” Clarke agreed with her. “What? You think you’re in charge here? You and your little princess?” Octavia smirked. Clarke glared at her.

Jesus. Just because she was from Alpha didn’t make her better than anyone else, even if 95% of Alpha felt that way. And she didn’t want to be in charge, she just wanted food. Who knew what the radiation did to the plant and animal life. Just because the air wasn’t toxic – yet – didn’t mean the plants weren’t.

“Do you think we care who’s in charge?” Clarke asked. “We need to get to Mount Weather not because the Chancellor said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we’ll get and the harder this’ll be. How long do you think we’ll last without those supplies? We’re looking at a twenty-mile trek, okay? So, if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave. Now.”

“I got a better idea,” Bellamy said. “You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the work for a change.” He was going to be a pain in the ass, that was for sure.

The other kids shouted their agreement. Whatever. She’d go alone if she had to. The Ark had to see that they could survive.

“You’re not listening,” Wells said. “We _all_ need to go.”

Someone rushed past her and pushed Wells in the back. It was the boy from the front of the group. “Look at this everybody – the Chancellor of the Earth.” The other boys filled in between her and Wells.

“You think that’s funny?” Wells asked. The other boy stepped and kicked Wells in the ankle, sending him toppling down. She tried to step towards him, but one of the boys held her back.

“Yeah, come on! Get him!” someone called out.

Wells got to his feet as the other boy said, “No, but that was.” Wells had never been in a fight before that she was aware of, and it definitely showed. The other boy was goading him Clarke was trying to figure out how to stop it when Finn jumped down in between them from the side of the dropship. The crowd went silent.

“Kids got one leg,” Finn said. “How bout you wait until it’s a fair fight?”

“Hey Spacewalker,” Octavia said, walking towards them. Finn turned to her. “Rescue me next.” Bellamy did not look pleased with that statement.

As the group broke up Clarke pushed Wells to sit against the dropship so she could look at his ankle. She still hated him, but she was pretty sure she was the only one with any medical experience. It didn’t look broken and he wasn’t in enough pain for it either. Probably just twisted or bruised.

“So, Mount Weather,” Finn said. “When do we leave?”

“Right now,” she said, standing. She looked at Wells. “We’ll be back tomorrow with food.”

“How are you two gonna carry enough food for a hundred?” Wells asked.

Finn turned and clapped goggles and the guy who’d been sitting next to him on the shoulders, spinning them around. “Four of us,” Finn said. “Can we go now?”

“Sounds like a party,” Octavia said. “Make it five.” Bellamy was hot on her heels.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” he asked, grabbing at her arm.

“Going for a walk,” she said, not looking at him. Strangely, he glanced at Clarke.

She looked away and caught sight of Finn’s wristband and the dark scuff along it. “Hey,” she said, taking his wrist. “Were you trying to take this off?”

“Yeah? So?” He shrugged.

So, this wristband transmits your vital signs to the Ark. Take it off and they’ll think you’re dead.”

“Should I care?” Finn asked.

“Well I don’t know,” Clarke said. “Do you want the people you love to think you’re dead? Do you want them to follow you down here in two months? Because they won’t if they think we’re dying.” Finn looked down at the ground. “Okay. Now let’s go.”

She stopped at Wells before following the others off. “You shouldn’t have come down here, Wells.”

Clarke caught up to Octavia as Finn led the two boys. “Before you get any ideas,” Octavia said. “Finn is mine.”

“Before you get any ideas, I don’t care,” Clarke said. She thought about her soulmark, tucked away beneath her pants. It would be nice to find whoever had the matching mark, but right now survival was more important. Her soulmate could wait.

They hadn’t made it far when the not-goggles kid looked back at her. “You were in solitary, right? I’m Monty Green. This is Jasper Jordan. I’m assuming you’re from Alpha given all the privileged stuff, but what’s your name?”

“Clarke Griffin,” Octavia said with half a sneer. “Her mom’s on the Council and is the Chief Medical Officer. Her dad’s one of the top engineers.”

“Was,” Clarke said, voice tight. “They floated him. Wells turned him in.”

“For what?” Finn asked.

Clarke looked up at the sky. “He was going to tell the truth. The Council disagreed.”

“Well, don’t expect me to feel sorry for you,” Octavia said awkwardly. “You’re not the only one whose parent got floated.”

They continued on in awkward silence for quite some time before they started seeing tiny purple flowers. Clarke had made her way to the front of the group given that she had the map, not Finn. When she couldn’t hear the others walking behind her anymore she paused and turned. Finn tucked a bloom behind Octavia’s ear and Monty was examining the flowers. Monty said something and Octavia swatted the flower out of her hair. But then Monty…ate one of the flowers?

“His family grows all the pharmaceuticals on the Ark,” Jasper said. Huh. That was handy. And Clarke was pretty sure she’d met Monty’s dad now that she thought about it.

“Hey guys, would you try to keep up?” she asked as they drew closer.

“Come on, Clarke,” Finn said. “How do you block all this out?” He gestured to the woods around them.

She wasn’t, but she could compartmentalize. “Well, it’s simple. I wonder ‘Why haven’t we seen any animals?’ Maybe it’s because there are none. Maybe we’ve already been exposed to enough radiation to kill us.” She paused. “Sure is pretty though. Come on.”

She turned and started walking again. Behind her, Octavia said, “Someone should slip her some poison sumac.”

“I gotta know what you two did to get busted,” Finn said.

“Sumac’s not the only _herb_ in the garden,” Monty said. “If you know what I mean.”

“Someone forgot to replace what we took,” Jasper said.

“Someone has apologized, like, a thousand times,” Monty retorted.

“How about you, Octavia?” Jasper asked. Clarke rolled her eyes, but saw something ahead of them. “What’d they get you for?”

“Being born.”

Clarke turned, kneeling, and Octavia jogged to her. She held a finger to her lips to get the others to be quiet. In the sparsely treed area ahead of them a deer stood eating grass. Male if the antlers were any indication. It was a good sign, but above all, it was the first animal they’d ever seen in person.

“No animals, huh,” Finn said quietly, so close his breath brushed against her ear. He crept forward and stepped on a branch, the crack echoing loudly.

The deer’s head shot up and turned to look at them. Almost in unison, they all cringed back, alarmed and scared. Where the deer’s left eye was, another overlapped it and another head grew, twisted and mutated. It bounded away from them.

Radiation. Mutation. What if all the animals were like that now? What about the predators?

They took a couple of minutes to settle before they continued on. They were half walking, half scrambling down a decline when Finn said, “Hey, you know what I’d like to know? Why send us down here after 97 years? What changed?” Clarke bit her lip and considered telling them. It didn’t really matter. The truth was going to come out as soon as the Ark came down whether the Council liked it or not. They could still kill her for it, but she would finish what her father started.

“Who cares?” Octavia asked. “I’m just glad they did. I woke up rotting in a cell and now I’m spinning in a forest.”

“Maybe they found something on a satellite, you know, an old weather satellite or—” Monty started.

“It wasn’t a satellite,” Clarke said, cutting him off. “The Ark is dying.” All four of them stopped and looked at her. She continued walking and spoke clinically, but the content was far from clinical. “At the current population level, there’s roughly three months left of life support. Maybe four now that we’re gone.”

“So that was the secret they locked you up to keep? Why they kept you in solitary? Floated your old man?” Finn asked.

And why less and less people in the Skybox were receiving pardons once they turned 18 even if they weren’t violent or terrible crimes since her dad discovered it. They definitely would’ve floated her when she turned 18. The timing of this whole journey to Earth felt a little suspicious based on how close she was to her 18th birthday. Her mom must have fought like hell to get this plan approved.

“My father was the engineer who discovered the flaw. He thought the people had a right to know.” He’d found out a week before her 17th birthday and been floated a week after. Two weeks after that she’d been locked up for trying to finish it. “The Council disagreed. My mother disagreed. They were afraid it would cause a panic. We were going to go public anyways when Wells—” She paused.

“What, turned in your dad?” Monty asked.

“Anyway, the guard showed up before we could. That’s why today,” she told Finn. “That’s why it was worth the risk. Even if we all die, at least they bought themselves more time.”

“They’re gonna kill more people, aren’t they?” Monty asked.

“Good,” Octavia said. “After what they did to me, I say float ‘em all.” She walked ahead, Jasper following. Clarke exchanged a glance with Monty and Finn.

“You don’t mean that,” Jasper said, but Clarke was certain that she did.

“We have to warn them,” Finn said.

Clarke looked at him, his words catching in her chest. “That’s what my father said.” She stepped away from Finn and backed into Jasper.

“Oh, damn. I love Earth,” he said.

Clarke followed his gaze to see Octavia stripping off her jumpsuit, leaving her in just underwear and a tank top. Oh. Huh. That – Clarke pushed away the thought of Octavia’s legs and focused on the fact that she was stripping for no apparent reason.

“Octavia, what the hell are you doing?” she asked, moving towards her.

Octavia looked at her and then took a few steps and jumped off the rock. There was a splash and they all ran forward to see a river hidden behind the rocks that jutted up. Clarke felt a grin bloom across her face. _Water_. Octavia was submerged past her lips in the water. Monty called out her name.

“We can’t swim,” he continued. The same thought was running through Clarke’s mind.

Octavia rose a little so that her chin cleared the water. “I know,” she said. “But we can stand.” She rose and the water was only deep enough to hit just below her chest. She laughed.

“Wait,” Clarke said, trying not to get distracted by the sight of an attractive and dripping wet girl. “There’s not supposed to be a river here.”

“Well there is,” Finn said. “So take off your damn clothes.”

Monty and Jasper were already shucking their jackets. Clarke grinned and wondered if any fish survived. They’d have to figure out how to catch them and how to cook them, but it was food. Unless it was toxic.

“Octavia, get out of the water,” Jasper said suddenly. Clarke looked up and Octavia turned to see something under the water moving in her direction. Something large. “Get out of the water now!” Jasper shouted, but it was too late. Octavia barely got a scream out before she was under the surface and being pulled away.

They were frozen, staring at the now calm surface of the water. Then Octavia popped up, gasping for breath, screaming and thrashing behind them. “What the hell is that?” Monty asked. 

“We have to help her,” Jasper said as the creature dragged Octavia.

“What are you gonna do?” Monty asked.

“Try not to get eaten,” Finn said. He looked as though he was going to jump in the water, but Clarke held him back.

“No, wait! If we distract it, it might let her go.” She dropped down to a large rock on top of the one they were standing on as Octavia began to scream again. “Help me!” She, Monty, and Finn pushed the large rock into the water.

The creature, some long snake looking thing, darted towards the rock, leaving Octavia alone and floundering in the water. But they wouldn’t have much time before the snake monster realized food hadn’t dropped into the water.

“It worked! It let her go!” Monty said.

“Octavia, get to the shore now,” Jasper called urgently and bolted off towards her. He jumped in the water and the creature began moving in his direction.

“It’s coming back!” Finn shouted. “It’s headed straight for you guys!” Clarke, Finn, and Monty ran as Jasper dragged Octavia through the water. He got up onto a rock, still partially in the water but only a couple of inches worth. As she got closer, Clarke could see bright blood on Octavia’s leg.

She dropped down next to Octavia. There were four wide but shallow teeth marks on the top of her thigh. Octavia rolled over to hug Jasper, breathing out a thank you and Clarke saw matching marks on the back of her thigh. They bled sluggishly, but they needed a bandage of some kind. They also needed to be disinfected. Who knew what that thing had on its teeth.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Clarke said.

“Note to self,” Monty said. “Next time, save the girl.” They all laughed as Monty clapped Jasper on the shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

She wound up bandaging Octavia’s wounds with Monty’s outer shirt, leaving him in the long sleeve hoodie he had underneath. After the near-death experience, they decided to rest for the night away from the river. They’d have to cross the river somehow, but they decided to deal with it in the morning. None of them were able to make a fire, which did not bode well for the future, so they just lay down near one another. Octavia lay down in between Jasper and Monty.

It took Clarke some time to fall asleep. The day had been a lot of things and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d woken up in solitary on the Ark, seen her mother for the first time in almost a year, she and 99 others from the Skybox plus one stowaway had been sent to Earth. She was lying on the ground. And the ground was actually a lot more terrifying than she’d thought.

Eventually she fell asleep, but she didn’t sleep for long. It was still dark, but there was birdsong and the moon was shining down on her. She sat up and that the light wasn’t just moonlight. The trees were glowing. She turned, intent on waking the others, but Jasper, Octavia, and Monty were sleeping. She decided to let them sleep and got up.

She walked into the glowing trees. It was some sort of fungus most likely that was bioluminescent. Whatever it was, it was beautiful. She wanted to draw, to figure out how to make paints and canvas and paper. She wished they still had cameras so she could capture this to show her mom. It was magical.

There was a stump with more bioluminescent plants growing over and around it. “Pretty cool, huh?” Finn asked from behind her as she stared at it.

She smiled at him and looked down. He was holding a large leaf like a bowl. Water sat in it. “Did you go to the river?”

“Figured it was worth losing a finger or two,” he said. He held it out to her. “Here.”

She took it from him and took a small sip. The water tasted entirely different than like the water on the Ark. It tasted…clean, not at all like the metallic water on the Ark. She lowered the leaf.

“You call that a sip?” Finn asked.

She smiled. He had a point. Water rationing didn’t apply to them any more. She took another drink and finished the water.

“You think this means we’re all gonna grow two heads?” he asked. She laughed – it wasn’t a giggle – and looked back down at the plants. “What do you know? She can laugh.” He was teasing and she found herself smiling at him. Damn. He was cute. “Come on. You have to see this.”

He led her away, up a hill until he knelt in the dirt. She knelt down next to him and looked at him expectantly. He pointed at an impression in the dirt before them. “That’s a toe.” She looked at him, stunned. “Plus, near as I can tell, whatever it is, it’s walking on two feet. My guess, monkeys.”

She snorted. He looked a teensy bit crestfallen so she said, “I’m sorry. It’s just, according to everything I’ve read, there were no bipedal animals anywhere near here. Certainly not monkeys.”

“Right,” Finn said. “You read anything about glow-in-the-dark forests or man-eating snakes?”

He had a point there. She looked down when she realized she’d been smiling at him for a few minutes. It felt…nice to be there and Octavia was right. Finn was pretty cute.

They went back to the others to sleep more eventually. Finn lay down closer to her than before and she had a momentary internal debate about whether she should sleep facing him or away from him before she gave up and just lay back down on her back. When they all woke for real when the sun was up, they went back to the river. They had to find some way across it in order to reach Mount Weather and the supplies they desperately needed. Octavia’s leg was still injured, but it looked better in the morning light. Clarke seriously hoped that there were medical supplies in that mountain. She had a feeling they were going to need some before long even excluding Octavia’s leg.

Finn had found a woody vine on one of the trees the night before when he was getting water and Monty said it wasn’t poison ivy, oak, or sumac from what he could tell when Finn showed it to him. “We could swing across,” Finn said. He grabbed tight above his head and picked his feet up. It sank a little, but it didn’t break. “Seems sturdy.”

“How will we get back over?” Octavia asked, eying the far bank.

Finn just shrugged and dropped his feet back to the ground. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe they’ve got a boat in there.”

Clarke, Octavia, and Monty moved to the rocks below the vine. Finn pulled on it one more time. “You wanted to go first,” Clarke said. “Now quit stalling. Mount Weather awaits.”

Breakfast awaited.

“Just hang on til the apogee and you’ll be fine,” Jasper said.

“Apogee. Like the Indians, right?”

“Apogee. Not Apache,” Jasper said.

“He knows. Today, Finn,” Clarke said.

“Aye aye, Captain,” Finn said, saluting. “See you on the other side.” He pulled on the vine, getting ready.

“Wait,” Jasper said.

“What?” Finn asked.

“Let me,” Jasper said. “I can do it.” He glanced at Octavia.

Finn handed the vine over. “Knew there was a badass in there somewhere.” Jasper grasped the vine but didn’t do anything at first. Finn said something quietly to him that Clarke didn’t catch.

Jasper smiled at Finn and looked down at them. “See you on the other side!” And he swung. He jumped and landed hard on some logs and the ground. The rushed to the edge of the rocks and Finn caught the vine as it swung back. Jasper stood, grinning wildly. “We are apogee!” eh screamed, raising his arms. The four of them cheered and shouted.

“Let’s go, Princess,” Finn said. “You’re up.”

She grabbed the vines as he held them out and got ready to climb up to the jumping off point. “Come on, Clarke!” Jasper shouted from the other side. “You got this! Wohoo! Apogee!” She kept staring at Finn. “We did it!” Jasper shouted in a different tone. She looked over to see him holding some sort of sign up. “Mount Weather! Wohoo!”

She beamed at Finn.

“Yeah, Jasper!” Finn shouted.

At first it looked like Jasper tripped backwards. But then Clarke realized he hadn’t Something had hit him. Something had been thrown at him from this side of the river. She called to him, Monty echoing her shouts. Finn grabbed at her, pulling her away.

“No! Jasper!” she shouted. She could hear her pulse and feel the panic set in. Finn pushed her down, Monty following with Octavia. Clarke looked back to Jasper. That had been a _spear_. Someone had thrown a spear at Jasper. Unless Finn was right about the monkeys and this had turned into _Planet of the Apes_.

Every noise was terrifying now. Someone was out there and had been watching them. “We’re not alone,” she said.

“We gotta go,” Finn said. “We gotta get back to the others.”

“We can’t leave him,” Monty said.

“We can’t get to him,” Finn said. “And he’s dead. That spear hit him dead center in the chest. We need to go _now_.”

Octavia was near tears and Monty gave one last look across the river before they all took off running. They kept low to the ground as long as they could, and Clarke worried about Octavia’s leg. They hadn’t gone far when Monty tripped and went sprawling on the ground.

“Monty!” Octavia quietly called. Clarke, at the back of the group, reached him last. Monty had almost landed face first in a ribcage.

“Come on, we gotta go,” Finn said as he and Octavia pulled Monty up off the ground. All around them were human bones, weathered and aged. “Who are they?”

Clarke knelt and picked up a skull that was clearly mutated. “What are they?” she asked rhetorically. Was this the type of person still out there?

“We are so screwed,” Octavia said.

Behind them in the direction of the river there was a scream, unmistakably Jasper. Clarke dropped the skull. “Jasper. He’s alive.” She took off running.

“Clarke, wait. Wait!” Finn said as they followed her. They were almost back to the river when Finn grabbed her shoulder. “Stay out of the trees.” Across the river Jasper was gone. The sign was there, but he was gone. “He was right there.”

“No,” Monty said, sounding desperate. “Where is he?”

“They took him,” Clarke said. Whoever was out there, they’d taken him.

“We have to go get the others,” Octavia said. “Get Bellamy.”

They ran and ran, taking breaks only when they had to. Distantly Clarke knew they were making too much noise, but they had to get back to the others. By the time they made it back to near where the dropship was, Clarke had a stitch in her side, every muscle hurt, her throat was raw, and Octavia’s leg was bleeding again. Monty was helping support her as they went. Clarke half wondered what her mom thought of her vitals.

They could hear shouting, so they veered off in that direction, Clarke and Finn in the lead. When they reached the others, she could see Wells had the boy who’d tried to fight him in a headlock.

“Wells!” she shouted, horrified as she saw the glint of a knife. She and Finn were the first to climb down into the gully. “Let him go!” As she reached them, Wells shoved the boy away.

He lunged for Wells again, but Bellamy caught him. “Enough Murphy.” Bellamy turned as Monty helped Octavia down the hill. “Octavia!” he said and rushed to her. “Are you alright?” He helped her the last few steps down and turned to the rest of them. “Where’s the food?”

Finn collapsed onto a log. Monty just collapsed to the ground where he was and Clarke stumbled, pushing away from Wells when he tried to steady her. She moved over to Monty and collapsed next to him. Absolutely everything hurt.

“We didn’t make it to Mount Weather,” Finn said, panting slightly.

“What the hell happened out there?” Bellamy asked angrily, looking first at Octavia and then Clarke.

“We were attacked,” she said. Monty’s breath hitched in between pants and she put her hand on his.

“Attacked?” Wells asked. “By what?”

“River monster,” Octavia said from where she leaned on her brother. She gestured at her leg. “And Jasper was attacked.”

“Not a what,” Finn said. “A who. It turns out when the last man from the ground died on the ark, he wasn’t the last Grounder.”

Bellamy tightened his arm around Octavia. “It’s true,” Clarke said. “Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. They are people here.” Or it was _Planet of the Apes_ , but she was pretty sure it was Homo Sapien out there. “Survivors.” The crowd began to murmur. “The good news is that means we can survive. Radiation won’t kill us.”

“Yeah, the bad news is, the Grounders will,” Finn said.

“Where is the kid with the goggles? Jasper?” Wells asked.

“They took him,” she said. She looked at the knife in Wells’s hand. “Where’s your wristband?” She looked around and saw a lot of kids didn’t have them anymore.

“Ask him,” Wells said, jerking his chin at Bellamy.

Octavia looked at her brother in confusion. Clarke pushed herself up onto shaky legs. “How many?”

“Twenty-four and counting,” Murphy said.

“You idiots,” she breathed. “Life support on the Ark is failing. That’s why they brought us down here. They need to know the ground is survivable again and we need their help against whoever is out there.” Some of the kids looked concerned, but most like Murphy, didn’t. “If you take off your wristbands, you’re not just killing _them_. You’re killing us.”

“We’re stronger than you think,” Bellamy said to the group. “Don’t listen to her. She’s one of the privileged. If they come down, she’ll have it good. How many of you can say the same? We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners anymore!”

_You were never a prisoner_ Clarke thought. _Shit_.

“They say you’ll forgive your crimes,” Bellamy continued. “I say you’re not criminals! You’re fighters, survivors! The Grounders should worry about us!”

The crowd cheered and Clarke walked away. He was going to get hundreds and hundreds of people killed. The Council wasn’t going to kill people from Alpha or any of the higher skilled people from the other stations. They were going to kill people that were chronically ill or people that were considered unskilled.

“What do we do now?” Monty asked, following her.

“Now we go after Jasper,” she said. Monty followed her into the dropship. “I’ll be back,” she said and headed up to the second floor. She started yanking whatever seatbelts were left, intent on using them to carry Jasper back. She shoved them into her pack and paused, breathing hard. Her lip trembled and she tried to fight back the tears. The past 24 hours had been horrible, she ached, and Bellamy Blake was a nightmare.

The hatch opened and Wells said, “There you are.” She really didn’t want to deal with him. She slung her pack over her shoulder and stood. “When my father said they didn’t leave us anything, he really meant it.” She saw a tear in his shirt and reached for his bicep, seeing a bleeding cut. “It’s just a scratched,” he sighed.

“You’re making friends fast,” she said. “Keep it covered. It could get infected. Nice pack.”

“Yeah, uh, seatbelts and insulation. I also packed part of the parachute, figured we could use it to carry Jasper—”

“Good. Give it to someone else. You’re not coming with us.” She headed towards the hatch.

“My ankle’s fine,” Wells said.

“It’s not your ankle, Wells, it’s you.”

“You came back for reinforcements,” Wells said as she reached the first floor. “I’m gonna help.”

“Clarke,” Monty said. “He’s right. We need him. So far no one else has volunteered.”

“I’m sorry, Monty, but you’re not going either,” Clarke said.

“Like hell I’m not. Jasper is my best friend.”

“You’re too important. You were raised on Farm station and recruited by engineering.”

“So?”

“So, food and communication. What’s up here,” she said, tapping his temple, “it’s gonna save us all. You figure out how to talk to the Ark and I’ll bring Jasper back.”

She turned and Finn walked into the dropship. “Hey, you ready?” she asked him.

“I’m not going anywhere, and neither should any of you,” Finn said. “That spear was thrown with pinpoint accuracy from 300 feet.”

“So, what, we let Jasper die?” Monty asked.

“That’s not gonna happen,” she told him. She looked back at Finn. “Spacewalker? What a joke. You think you’re such an adventurer. You’re really just a coward.”

“It’s not an adventure, Clarke. It’s a suicide mission.”

She shook her head and walked out of the dropship, Wells following behind her. She spotted Octavia and Bellamy and headed in their direction.

“The others said it looked like a giant snake,” Clarke heard Octavia say as Bellamy tended to her wound.

“You could have been killed,” Bellamy said.

“She would have been if Jasper didn’t jump in to pull her out,” Clarke said, stopping next to the siblings.

“You guys leaving?” Octavia asked. “I’m coming too.” She tried to stand, but Bellamy pushed her back down.

“He’s right,” Clarke said. “Your leg’s just gonna slow us down. I’m here for you,” Clarke said, looking at Bellamy. He shifted and looked at her.

“Clarke, what are you doing?” Wells asked.

“I hear you have a gun,” she sighed, completely ignoring Wells. Bellamy looked down and lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal a pistol tucked into his waistband, which was really not a great place for that. “Good, follow me.”

“And why would I do that?” Bellamy asked as she walked away.

She turned back to him and stepped close. “Because you want them to follow you,” she said, gesturing with her head to the rest of the camp. “And right now, they’re thinking only one of us is scared.” She held his gaze for a few seconds and continued walking, Wells following behind.

“Murphy,” Bellamy said. “Come with me. Atom? My sister doesn’t leave this camp. Is that clear?”

Clarke was too far to hear Octavia’s reply, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t pleased. “Those guys aren’t just bullies, Clarke,” Wells said. “They’re dangerous criminals.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Murphy and Bellamy hung back. She could hear the two of them talking, but she couldn’t hear what they were actually saying. She was leading, given that she was the only one who knew the way to the river, but Wells kept close to her back. Clarke just kept walking, moving as quickly as she could. Every second counted and they’d already lost hours in the run back. She’d promised to bring Jasper back to Monty. 

“Hey, hold up,” Bellamy called out. “What’s the rush? You don’t survive a spear through the heart.”

“Put the gun away, Bellamy,” Wells said, and Clarke glanced over to see he was waving it around.

Murphy lunged for Wells and said, “Well, why don’t you do something about it, huh?”

“Jasper screamed when they moved him,” Clarke said to Bellamy. “If the spear struck his heart, he’d have died instantly. It doesn’t mean we have time to waste.”

As she turned to continue on, Bellamy grabbed her wrist. “As soon as you take this wristband off, we can go.”

She pulled her arm from his grasp and stared him down, thinking of her mother on the Ark alone. “The only way the Ark is gonna think I’m dead is if I’m dead,” she said, stepping into his space. “Got it?”

He shifted his weight back and tried to smirk at her, but nerves took most of it away. “Brave Princess.”

“Hey!” Finn called. “Why don’t you find your own nickname?” Clarke was happy to see he’d changed his mind about coming with them. “You call this a rescue party? Got to split up, cover more ground. Clarke, come with me.”

She gladly quickly walked off with him. “Better late than never,” she said.

“I like to think so,” Finn said.

She stuck by Finn as the others followed behind. Wells just wanted to be friends again – not happening – and Murphy and Bellamy both seemed to have a case of too much testosterone going on. She’d gladly stay with Finn instead of the other three.

After they’d been walking for a while and distanced from the other three, Finn said, “I’ve been thinking about Mount Weather. How come they didn’t attack until Jasper crossed the river? It’s not like we were being quiet and they didn’t know we were there.”

That was a good point. Why hadn’t the Grounders attacked them on their way to Mount Weather instead of once they’d crossed the river? She didn’t know if they’d been watching them the first day, but if they wanted to attack, they should have done it when Octavia had been attacked. They were certainly distracted enough then. And they’d only attacked Jasper even though everyone else had minimal cover.

“They waited for us to cross,” she said. “The river’s a boundary.” She stopped walking and turned to him.

“Which means Mount Weather is off limits,” Finn said.

“How are we gonna get those supplies? What are we gonna do for food?” she asked, crestfallen.

Finn looked around and headed off before leaning against a tree. She followed, confused, and stopped when she reached him. “Wow.” There was a waterfall trickling down a gradual slope until it reached a clear pool of water before the overflow spilled off. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about water.”

Finn grinned and headed towards the water. She followed behind, half wondering where the other three were. The water seeped into her boots as they stepped into the shallows. She set her pack down on a dryish rock as Finn stepped deeper into the cold water and started splashing water up into his face. She filled her makeshift canteen with water, intent on getting back to hiking quickly.

“Oh yeah,” Finn groaned, waist deep in water. Some of the water he was flinging landed on her. He turned and purposefully splashed her.

She froze for a second and then said, “Come on, Finn, we don’t have time for this.”

“Clarke, we’ve been hiking for hours. We need to take a break.”

“I’ll take a break when we find Jasper.” She wouldn’t, actually, but he didn’t need to know that right now. “Come on.”

Finn stepped forward as if to get out of the pool but slipped, grasping at her wrist. The teasing look in his eyes meant it was intentional and not actually a slip. “No, no,” she said. “Finn, don’t!” But he pulled her in, completely drenching her clothes in cold water. “Dammit Finn,” she said and smacked at his shoulder, but he was grinning and laughing. She could stand, barely, and had to wave her arms under the water to stay vertical. “Oh. Oh wow. Okay. Maybe just a minute.” The water did feel really good even if it was slightly too cold given the air temperature.

“Yeah,” Finn said, smiling softly at her. She smiled back. “I think I know why you’re so hell bent on finding Jasper or why you’re always taking care of everybody else.”

She scoffed. “Now you sound like my mother,” she said, looking down at the water. “No, go on. This should be good. The delinquent psychiatrist.”

Finn was awkwardly quiet for a minute. “You couldn’t save your father,” he finally said.

That – that wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t right. She couldn’t save her father because of Wells, not because of herself. And that wasn’t why she wanted to save Jasper. Jasper deserved to live and it was her fault because she was the one who said they had to go. She should have gone across the river first – not Jasper, not Finn. It should have been her. It was her idea in the first place.

She looked down from Finn just as Wells called, “There you are!” She looked to the shallows and saw the other three. Bellamy was looking at them suspiciously and Murphy looked like he didn’t care about what was going on.

“Thought we didn’t have time to waste,” Bellamy sneered.

Clarke looked back at Finn, but over his shoulder as he moved a splash of red caught her gaze. Blood. There was a lot of blood on the opposite rocks. Finn followed as she moved towards it and Wells called out her name. She exchanged a glance with Finn. There was a bloody handprint on a rock that was bigger than her. Down at the base of it she saw a glint and pulled out Jasper’s goggles.

“Jasper,” she called, turning to the others. “He was here.”

“We’re close,” Finn said and when she looked, he was kneeling down, fingers wet with blood.

“I am not getting in that water,” she heard Murphy say.

“Down there,” Finn said, pointing to the gentle slope the water drained down. She followed his gaze and saw drops of red. The water was a shallow course in a rocky, pebbled bed down there. He dunked his fingers in the water to wash away Jasper’s blood and started to climb down. He turned and held his hand out to help her down.

When they met the others at the bottom, Wells held her pack out and refused to make eye contact with her. Bellamy had no such qualms and smirked at her.

“Hey Spacewalker,” Murphy said. “That feel like your space walk?”

“Yeah, sure,” Finn said distractedly and headed off away from them. She quickly followed and realized that wet clothes weren’t exactly pleasant, especially given the temperature and light breeze that had kicked up. They kept walking, Finn’s eyes scouring the ground, until at least her hair had fully dried even if nothing else had.

“Hey, how do we know this is the right way?” Murphy asked.

“We don’t,” Bellamy said. “Spacewalker thinks he’s a tracker.”

“It’s called ‘cutting sign,’” Wells said. “Fourth year Earth skills. He’s good.”

“You want to keep it down or should I paint a target on your backs?” Finn asked quietly. He stopped and reached for a snapped branch and then dropped to look at the ground below it. Drops of blood, dark and drying. It had been wet at the pool. The Grounders were making better time than they were.

Behind her, Bellamy said, “See, you’re invisible.” Which, A) they were a foot apart, did he think she couldn’t hear him?, B) Well’s wasn’t invisible, though that would be a better option, she was just ignoring him, and C) what the fuck? So she ignored it and Bellamy. Or she planned to, but a moan rang out in the distance.

“What the hell was that?” Murphy asked.

_Jasper_. “Now would be a good time to take out that gun,” Clarke said.

When they reached Jasper, hiding on the edge of the tree line, Clarke was startled to see that Jasper was tied up on a gnarled tree in a small clearing, semi-conscious. It looked like he had new injuries. There was some sort of symbol on the right side of his lower abdomen, something on his left pec, and blood on his face. There was something dark on his chest where the spear had gone in, but she couldn’t see it well from their distance. What was this? A warning?

“Oh my God,” she said, taking a step forward.

“Clarke, be careful,” Finn said, but she kept moving.

“Jasper?” she called as she made her way to him.

“What the hell is this?” Bellamy asked from just behind her shoulder.

She took another step and felt the ground start to give. She tried to turn and get back on solid land, but it was too late. She reached, trying to grab at anything as she fell. A hand grabbed at her wrist and she held tight, slamming into a dirt wall, breath whooshing out of her in a gasp. She looked down to see a series of wooden stakes sticking up and looked up to see Bellamy staring down at her, holding her forearm tightly. She met his gaze. She’d fall to her death in the spikes and he’d get what he wanted if he let her go. But he didn’t look like he was going to let her go. His eyes were determined, and his other hand was reaching down to haul her up before Finn and Wells even reached him. Between the four boys she reached level ground again, pulse racing.

“You okay?” Finn asked, crouching down to her.

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing heavily as she scrambled back from the pit’s edge. Finn helped her to her feet, and she looked at Bellamy. He was looking at her with some peculiar expression. It almost looked like relief, but that couldn’t be it. Finn kept his hands on her shoulders, and she looked up at Jasper. “We need to get him down.”

“I’ll climb up there and cut the vines,” Finn said and carefully moved forward.

“Yeah,” Wells said. “I’m with you.”

“No,” Finn said sharply, turning to look at him. “Stay with Clarke. And watch him.” Bellamy’s gaze narrowed. Finn looked to Murphy. “You. Let’s go.”

“There’s a poultice on his wound,” Clarke said, seeing it now that she was closer.

“Medicine?” Wells asked as Murphy followed Finn’s path to the tree and Bellamy stepped closer to her. She was pretty sure he wasn’t going to push her in the pit. “Why would they save his life just to string him up as live bait?” He stepped closer to the tree, leaving her closer to Bellamy than to him.

“Maybe what they’re trying to catch likes its dinner to be breathing,” Bellamy said.

“Maybe what they’re trying to catch is us,” Finn said at the base of the tree. But that didn’t seem right. This was seriously out of the way from the dropship and the Grounders wouldn’t have known they’d come back for him. Finn and Murphy climbed up the tree and started working on the vines holding Jasper’s torso. The two boys were precariously perched, and Clarke worried they’d fall, even if Murphy did seem like an asshole. Wells shifted anxiously as the worked. Bellamy remained still next to her. He was close enough that she could feel the warmth from his body.

“Hurry up, Murphy,” Finn said.

“Be careful,” she called up. Somewhere off to the right was a growling, groaning sound.

“What the hell was that?” Murphy asked.

“Grounders?” Bellamy asked took a few steps to peer through the trees. It was the furthest he’d been from her since he’d hauled her out of the pit. Slinking through the ferns and foliage was a dark shape, low to the ground. Clarke felt her pulse start to race again. Jasper was bait.

The creature snarled and sprang into action, running towards them. All Clarke could focus on was big teeth. “Bellamy! Gun!” she shouted in panic. There was a blast of sound from Wells as he fired the pistol at the creature, shooting once, then again, and again, finally hitting it. The creature slumped momentarily but scrambled back up. She felt Bellamy grab her arm and pull her back as Wells crossed in front of them with the gun.

“Give me that!” Bellamy said. “Your aim is shit!” But Wells didn’t hand it over and Bellamy shoved her behind him. The creature circled, unseen under the plant cover and went still. Clarke held her breath, letting it out in a tiny scream as it jumped for her and Bellamy. One more shot and its trajectory abruptly ended, landing a few feet in front of them. The gun clicked repeatedly as Wells kept pulling the trigger. Clarke realized Bellamy had a hand, hot and large on her hip, and one of her hands grasped his bicep while the other was clenched in the back of his jacket. For a breath neither of them moved.

Then Wells dropped the gun and Clarke stepped away from Bellamy. He glanced back at her, but she stared at the dead…panther? It kind of looked like a panther.

“We need to get him down, now,” Clarke said and looked up at Finn. He nodded sharply and began hacking at the vines with more urgency. Murphy took a second to follow suit.

“You used all the ammo,” Bellamy said.

“Don’t you have more?” Wells asked. “You brought it down.”

“Yeah, ammo was high on my priority list,” Bellamy said, sounding annoyed. He crouched down next to the panther cautiously.

“Hey, come spot us,” Finn called. “We’ve just got his arms to do.”

Bellamy rose and he and Wells moved to the base of the tree to help get Jasper down. Clarke hovered anxiously as Jasper groaned and moaned on the way down. “Clarke,” Wells said. “The parachute.”

“You brought part of the parachute?” Bellamy asked as he and Wells carried Jasper to her and Finn and Murphy climbed down the tree.

“To carry Jasper,” Wells said pointedly.

“Can we carry him and the panther?” Bellamy asked as he and Wells gently put Jasper down in front of Clarke. Wells supported and braced his back so that he stayed upright. “It’s edible, right?” he asked, looking at Clarke.

“Why would I know that?” Clarke asked, looking at every injury on Jasper. “Jasper? Jasper, it’s Clarke. Can you…” Jasper wasn’t responding and his breath was rapid and shallow, eyes rolling in his head. “We need to get _him_ back, not the panther.”

“We need food too,” Finn said, but he looked conflicted. “Drag the panther and carry Jasper?”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Murphy asked as Clarke tried to pour some water in Jasper’s mouth. He sort of swallowed, but most of it just dripped down his chin.

“Two of us carry him, brace him in between us so he’s sitting on our arms,” Finn said. “We can’t get to Mount Weather and the supplies there. The other three can carry the panther or drag it in the parachute.”

“You think the Princess can carry anything?” Murphy sneered.

“Go fuck yourself,” Clarke said.

“We need the food, Clarke,” Finn said quietly. She looked up at him and then over at the panther, biting her lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure I should mention that even though this closely follows season one and season two, I have made some changes based on how stupid they were on the show. Tourniquets are bad and you should apply pressure because you don't want to cut off blood flow, hence why Clarke didn't tie a tourniquet around Octavia's leg. Also the distance on this show makes no sense in ways that truly astound me because these are real places in the world and Google maps will tell you how long it takes to walk from Washington DC to the Mount Weather Emergency bunker. 
> 
> I'm also from Maryland and I know they shot in Canada, but OMG does the topography make me mad. So that factors into this fic too. If you've never been to the Lincoln Memorial let me tell you that you cannot see a mountain behind it like you can on the show. Also pretty much nobody from this area calls it Washington DC and I'm pretty sure they just named it TonDC because of the sign, but that's a highway sign and there wasn't a highway anywhere near them in that episode.
> 
> Last note, I started writing this in June and thought it was going to be a two shot, chapter one being season one and chapter two being season two. Microsoft Word tells me this is now 222 pages and 96,574 words. So, uh, buckle up? I'm not even done with season 2 yet so it's only going to get longer.


	3. Chapter 3

Getting the panther _and_ Jasper back to the camp proved a little difficult. They had to switch off a few times to rest certain muscles and work others. Despite being such a tall, skinny guy, Jasper was apparently pretty heavy. Not that any of the boys let her carry Jasper. Bellamy said it was due to height differences and keeping Jasper level. He did have to order Murphy to help out with Jasper though.

When they finally reached the dropship area, Bellamy said, “Go, we’ve got this.” She knew, she just knew that he was going to take all the credit for the panther, but Jasper was more important. So she went ahead and found Monty waiting for them.

“Is he—” Monty asked, staring at Finn and Wells carrying Jasper into the dropship.

“He’s alive,” she said, reassuring him. “I need boiled water and strips of cloth for bandages,” she told him as the two boys carried Jasper into the dropship. Octavia hovered close by.

Bellamy and Murphy dragged the parachute into the camp and revealed the panther. “Who’s hungry?” Bellamy shouted. Clarke fought the urge to roll her eyes. It was gonna be a while until it was ready, and the likelihood of food poisoning was high. As soon as the thought that she wasn’t dealing with food poisoning victims crossed her mind, she knew she would deal with it if it came down to it. Not that there was a remedy for food poisoning other than not eating it anymore and making sure dehydration didn’t set in. Well, maybe she could convince someone to eat some charcoal, but that didn’t seem particularly likely. Clarke ignored Bellamy’s gaze and smirk and went into the dropship.

Finn and Wells laid Jasper on the floor. He’d passed into full unconsciousness an hour before they’d reached the dropship and Clarke was worried. No, she was more than worried. She’d promised Monty she’d bring Jasper back and she had. But she didn’t know if she could bring him back. She didn’t have the training for this, not with only six months of an internship in medical. He’d been speared in the chest and carved into. Even if she did save him, he’d bear the reminder for the rest of his life. One of the carved marks carefully skirted the edges of the starburst that curved along Jasper’s side.

It was all her fault. She’d been the one to suggest the trip even if Finn had pulled Monty and Jasper in. If she had just stayed put at the dropship, Octavia wouldn’t have teeth marks in her leg and Jasper would be laughing and flirting. But instead she was here, and Jasper was probably slowly dying.

She wiped at the blood on Jasper’s cheek and thought that outside of the mandatory blood drives on the Ark, she’d seen more blood in the last twelve hours than she ever had before.

Someone crouched next to her and she looked to see Finn. He held something out to her, twisted scraps of metal. She laughed as she realized it was a two headed deer. She smiled at Finn and set it next to them on a jump seat.

Later, after she’d done her best to clean Jasper’s wounds and bandage him up, she left Monty to watch over Jasper and ventured outside the dropship, deer in her pocket. Her heart sank as she saw a growing pile of wristbands. Finn was staring at the line of kids waiting for food.

“He’s stable for now, but without medicine,” she trailed off. “They’re taking off their wristbands for food? No, no way – I won’t do it.”

“You don’t have to,” Finn said. He moved towards the fire and the roasting meat. He grabbed a skewer and Murphy moved to stop him, but Finn took the skewer and walked away. She smirked at Murphy’s shaken expression and then at Bellamy as she followed after Finn. He led her up to a small hill in their camp, away from the others. They sat, pressed close and shared the skewer.

“This takes awful,” she said when they were halfway done.

“Yeah,” he laughed. “It really is.”

She and Monty slept in the dropship that night, one on either side of Jasper. Or they tried to anyways. He was restless and in pain, so they didn’t sleep well, more like dozed a bit. She was tired when the rest of the camp woke, something she wasn’t really used to. Solitary confinement meant the only schedule she had to keep involved the two times her meals arrived through a slot in her door and her once a week shower privileges. She did a lot of sleeping when she hadn’t been drawing.

She knew from a medical perspective that it had probably been a sign of depression. She also knew that nobody in the Skybox got the Vitamin D supplements so even with her “luxurious” skylight, there was probably an element of Vitamin D deficiency related depression involved. The likelihood that she was still suffering from depression – that a lot of the delinquents were – was pretty high. There were just a lot of other things going on that they had to worry about. And given the amount of time they were probably going to spend outside, a lot of Vitamin D too.

The rest of the camp had fully woken up if the sounds outside the dropship were any indication when Octavia burst into the dropship. “Have you seen Atom?”

“We haven’t left the dropship since last night,” Clarke said. “So, no.”

Octavia frowned. “I decided you can have Finn,” she said. “How’s Jasper?”

Clarke had a feeling the question about Atom and the decision about Finn were connected. “He’s not better than he was last night, but he’s not worse either,” Clarke said. “He won’t drink any water and he’s going to need to eat. But he’s not going to be able to eat the panther meat even if there was any left.”

Wait. They had meat. Which meant that they had bones. She’d read about that somewhere in one of her medical textbooks.

“What did your brother do with the bones last night?”

“Why do you want the bones?” Monty asked.

“Bone broth. Soup,” Clarke said. “Jasper can’t eat the meat and he needs liquids. Best of both worlds.”

“I’ll go check,” Octavia said and ducked out of the dropship.

“You think he’s going to hand over the bones?” Monty asked. “He’s not letting anyone without a wristband eat.”

“Did you eat?” Clarke asked.

“Jasper may be my best friend, but he’s not my only one,” Monty said. “She’s gonna keep it up as long as possible. She took hers off before you explained what was going on. She feels awful now.”

“Finn just went and got a skewer,” Clarke said. “Do you think that you could find nuts or berries or _something_ we could try to feed him if we don’t get more meat. Or if Bellamy won’t give us any bones.”

“I – maybe. That was really the only part of Earth Skills I excelled at. I mean, I think we should just stay away from mushrooms entirely. Who knows if they’re all poisonous now.”

“Maybe see if Finn will go with you just to be safe,” she suggested.

“Bellamy says they chucked the bones in the woods,” Octavia said, storming back in.

“He just threw them in the woods,” Clarke said flatly. “It didn’t occur to him to use them as weapons even?” She huffed. “Monty, I’ll be back. I’ll try to see if Finn will go out foraging with you.” She stood and headed out of the dropship, wincing at the bright morning sunlight.

“We could use the bones as weapons?” Octavia asked as she followed Clarke out. Clarke wasn’t thrilled with how much walking Octavia was doing, but so far it hadn’t done any harm to her leg.

“That’s how humans started out making weapons,” Clarke said. “Bones and rocks.”

“Clarke!” Wells called, but she ignored him and continued towards Bellamy.

“What do you want?” he asked in irritation as she approached him.

“You threw the bones away,” she said. “Did you even think that they could be used?”

“ _You_ wanted the bones?” he asked. “Why?”

“Jasper needs to eat,” she said. “We can make soup from the bones. You can also make weapons from them. Or needles. We’re going to need to stitch things up eventually whether it’s people or things.”

“He’s still got a wristband,” Bellamy said.

“So, did you want to go slit his throat now?” she asked dryly, which clearly threw him based on the surprise on his face. “Because it sounds like you’re fine with letting him starve to death.” Even Murphy and the boys around Bellamy looked a little uncomfortable. “He’s not going to be able to heal and recover if he doesn’t have any food and water. I’m taking the bones. You can have the rest for weapons.”

“He’s going to die anyways,” Murphy said.

“No he’s not,” Octavia said. “Clarke’s going to save him and he needs to eat for that to happen.”

“Whatever,” Bellamy said, rolling his eyes. He jerked his head towards the woods. “They’re out that way. I don’t remember where specifically.”

“We should do this for all the meat that we have,” she said. “It’ll stretch our supplies out.” He narrowed his eyes and didn’t respond as she and Octavia walked off.

It took a few minutes to find the bones, which were just in a jumbled pile and pretty disgusting. “Do we need them all?” Octavia asked.

“No,” Clarke said. “I think it’s just the big ones.”

“You think?” Octavia asked sharply.

“I read about it a year ago,” Clarke said. “We’re just going to make it up as we go beyond the bits I remember.” She picked up what she thought was a leg bone. It was not going to fit in the crappy pot they had. “What did they do with the organs?”

Octavia’s face wrinkled up. “Gross. They tossed those out too.”

“Organ meat is just as edible. It shouldn’t go to waste,” Clarke said, though she too felt kind of grossed out about eating kidneys and livers. “We should save the tendons and sinews too.”

“How do you know all this?” Octavia asked as they walked back, arms full of bones.

“Earth skills has a medical specific component. I started it when I started my internship. I read ahead though. There was some stuff about plant-based medicine, but Monty would probably know more.” She shrugged. “We should try to find a willow tree though.”

“Why?” Octavia asked.

“Aspirin. We can try to get Jasper some pain relief. The bark can become tea, or you can chew on it.”

“Chewing on bark doesn’t sound fun,” Octavia said.

“Clarke,” Wells called, coming over. “We need to talk.”

“No we don’t,” Clarke said. She looked towards Bellamy and found him staring at her. “Don’t throw the organs, tendons, and sinews away anymore,” she called to him. He scoffed and turned away.

“Just to be clear,” Octavia said. “Bell’s an ass, but this doesn’t mean we’re friends. You save Jasper and maybe I’ll reassess.”

“Clarke,” Wells said, trying to get her attention.

“We’ll need water,” Clarke said to Octavia. “A lot of it. And it’s going to have to boil for a long time.”

It took a little bit to get everything prepped, between boiling the water, cleaning the bones, and then breaking them so that they would fit in their pot. Nathan – Miller as he seemed to go by amongst the others – helped to break the bones, though he seemed a little reluctant and kept glancing over at Bellamy. Wells lurked in her periphery, watching her. She did her best to ignore him.

“Monty said he’d go see if he can find any nuts or berries or anything that might be edible for Jasper too,” Clarke said as they carefully dropped the bones in the water. “It’s probably too late for berries here, but anything will help.”

“That’s a good idea,” Octavia said. “But is he going to be able to eat nuts? He can’t chew right now.”

“We can try mashing them into a paste, like peanut butter,” Clarke said.

“Bell snuck me peanut butter a few times,” Octavia said. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t like it. He looked so happy when I tried it.” She shrugged. “It’s a good idea though.”

A flash of a younger, softer Bellamy smiling flashed through Clarke’s mind. “It’s a good idea for everyone, honestly. Nuts are a good source of protein,” she said. “We’re going to have to store a lot of food if we want to survive the winter, Ark or no Ark.”

“Yeah,” Octavia sighed. “I really don’t want to starve. And we’re not going to let Jasper starve. I’ll watch the pot if you want to send Monty out. He’s not going to go by himself, is he?”

“I was going to find Finn and ask, but I haven’t seen him this morning,” Clarke said. “He’s not going out there alone though. I don’t know who else would go with him.”

“Go get Monty,” Octavia said. “I’ll stay here.”

Clarke nodded and headed for the dropship. She could hear Wells following behind her. Monty looked up at her when she walked in and then quickly over towards the wall and back to her. While she’d been outside with Octavia at the fire, Murphy had taken up residence inside the dropship, smirking over at them.

“Octavia’s watching the pot as it boils. It’s going to take a while to turn into anything other than water,” Clarke told Monty. “I couldn’t find Finn but maybe you’ll have better luck.”

“I’ll go with him,” Wells said behind her.

Clarke shifted her weight and Monty looked between the two of them for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said and stood up. “I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but I don’t plan on going too far out and we’ll definitely be back by dark.”

“Sooner if you can manage,” Clarke said. He nodded and left the dropship with Wells. She moved to Jasper’s side and lay the back of her hand across his forehead. He still felt feverish.

The parachute covering the door was pushed open, but Clarke didn’t look up until a pair of legs were in her field of vision opposite Jasper’s body. A girl, one of the older teenagers by the looks of it, stood there. “Hey. Monty told me to come sit with you and Jasper. I’m Terra.” She crouched down and bit her lip as she looked at Jasper. “Can you actually save him? Because it’s going to destroy Monty if he doesn’t make it.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power. I can save him,” Clarke said.

Terra didn’t say much, just kept Clarke quiet company for an hour or so as they watched over Jasper. Murphy stayed put for most of the hour until a tall boy wandered in, looking for Murphy. Clarke didn’t know his name, but she knew he wasn’t one of Bellamy’s lackeys. He did say that Bellamy was looking for Murphy, but didn’t immediately follow Murphy out of the dropship. Instead, he stared at them, looking between Clarke and Jasper, and smirked before walking out.

Clarke really didn’t like how things were looking with the others in camp. People hadn’t exactly been willing to overlook Jasper’s painful moans and whimpers the night before. She glanced up at the hatch in the ceiling and wondered if they could manage to get Jasper up there. Some people had slept up there the night before, but people also slept on the first floor both in the hammocks that had been strung up and on the floor. If they moved Jasper up, he’d be away from the others and if Murphy or anyone else tried anything, they could block the hatch.

Finn walked into the dropship almost twenty minutes after Murphy left. He looked surprised to see someone else sitting next to Jasper. “Where’s Monty?” he asked.

“Foraging,” Clarke said. “Where have you been?”

“He’s not alone is he?” Finn asked, looking worried.

“He’s with Jaha junior,” Terra said. “Asked me to sit here with Jasper until he got back.”

“Where’s Octavia?” Finn asked. “Is she with her brother?”

“She’s watching the soup,” Clarke said. Finn looked confused. “Jasper can’t eat the meat so we’re making bone broth.” She glanced back up at the hatch and then down at Jasper. “I think we need to move him.”

“Move him where?” Finn asked.

“Up to the second floor, maybe the third if we can manage,” Clarke said. She was pretty sure they couldn’t get him up to the third floor, but there might be a slim chance.

“He passed out from the pain when we _carried_ him here,” Finn said. “And you want us to try and haul him up a ladder and through a hatch?”

“Yes,” Clarke said. “He’ll be further away from people sleeping and it’ll be harder for Murphy or Bellamy to do anything to him.”

“Finn, you climb up first,” Terra said, eyeing the hatch. “Lay down so your body can be a counterweight. We’ll carry Jasper over and prop him up. One of us will climb halfway up the ladder and lift him to you and then help get him in the hatch. It’d be better with four, but we can make it work.” At Finn’s incredulous look she said, “It’ll work. It’ll also hurt him, so Clarke, you’d better be sure about moving him.”

She was sure and Terra was right about it hurting Jasper. He moaned in pain when they moved him and cried out when Finn began hauling him up. He settled somewhat when they had him horizontal again, laying down in the central circle on the second floor. Clarke checked his wounds, worried they had broken open while moving him, but everything seemed fine. He was still warm and the wound in his chest still looked angry and was seeping, but the poultice seemed to be doing something.

Once Jasper was settled and had some makeshift bedding around him to keep him comfortable, Terra headed out of the dropship to check on the soup, though honestly Clarke had no idea how long to let it boil for. She just knew it was a long time.

Much later as the sun was setting, Monty had volunteered to try and get Jasper to drink some of the bone broth to let Clarke and Finn get out of the dropship. They had gone to the large fire and she sat in between Finn and Octavia, sharing a large, lopsided, makeshift cup of broth and a few of the berries that Monty had found. Clarke stared into the fire, thinking about the starburst on Jasper’s side, the pomegranate on her hip, and whatever the dark mark on Octavia’s ankle was.

“Somebody had to think there were people down here,” she said.

“Why would someone think that? A whole bunch of nukes went off 100 years ago,” Finn said.

“The soulmarks,” she said, staring into the fire still.

“What do soulmarks have to do with it?” Octavia asked.

“It’s not just to keep the stations apart,” Clarke said. “The reason why people don’t match, I mean.”

“Huh,” someone said across the fire. Clarke thought her name was Harper. “The first generation of babies must’ve alarmed a lot of people.”

“I don’t – oh,” Octavia said and looked down to her ankle. “You…well. I don’t know if I believe in soulmates.”

“The marks don’t have to mean anything,” Finn said.

“But it’s still…someone involved in this must have suspected,” Clarke said. “Someone must have told their kid who told their kid. After the stations joined, they could have created a database of soulmarks. But they didn’t. The class system of the Ark wasn’t set for another 10 years. They should have made a database. But they didn’t. So, they must have suspected at the very least that there were survivors.”

“It was definitely about the class system too, though,” Harper said.

“What was?” Bellamy asked, walking over with some of his lackies.

“There’re survivors on the ground,” Clarke said. “It’s the other reason why people on the Ark don’t find their soulmates.” A couple of the boys snickered but there was something in Bellamy’s eyes as he looked at her.

“It was to keep the stations apart,” Finn said. “They couldn’t have known.”

“So you’re saying the Grounder that speared Jasper might be his soulmate,” Bellamy said.

“I’m saying any of us might have a soulmate out in the woods. Or on another continent. I assume some people survived elsewhere too. They nuked Washington, DC but there’s survivors here,” Clarke shrugged.

“Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates, Princess,” Bellamy said. “It’s just a mark. The universe doesn’t know who the so called ‘perfect person’ for you is.”

Clarke was going to respond to that, but Finn said, “Are you saying we should stop worrying about the Grounders because they may be someone’s soulmate? They almost killed Jasper and then strung him up as live bait for last night’s dinner.”

“I’m not saying any of that,” Clarke said. “I was saying that someone must have had an idea that there were survivors, that _we’d_ be able to survive. So maybe even if we don’t get communications up and running, they’ll know it’s safe.”

Jasper didn’t improve and actually started to slowly slide down to worse. She couldn’t do much to help him without medicine. The non-spear wound injuries were healing, but Clarke was still concerned. He still had a fever and hadn’t come to consciousness yet. He was drinking the bone broth, which was a good sign. Clarke just hoped and prayed that his wounds didn’t become infected.

Wells kept trying to talk to her and kept trying to bring her food. She refused to interact with him, but he kept trying. The third full day Jasper was back at the camp it came to a head.

“You need to be careful,” Wells had hissed at her where he’d dragged her off to the side of the dropship where he and Murphy had almost fought. “They’re criminals.”

“ _I’m_ a criminal,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice.

“No, you’re not,” Wells said.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “And they were going to kill me for it.” She hadn’t exactly come to terms with the fact that she was going to be executed while she was in the Skybox, but she’d known it was going to happen. Now, down here on the Earth, the chance of her dying before she turned 19 only seemed marginally smaller. But still, she wasn’t _going_ to die on her 18th birthday. “My mom was going to have to watch me get sucked out an airlock the same way we watched my dad die because of you.”

“Clarke,” Wells started to say.

“I don’t want to hear _anything_ from you,” she said bitterly and stalked off, ignoring how most of the teenagers around them were staring at her.

That night when she’d settled more, she and Monty were alone with Jasper. She didn’t like the way Jasper looked. She took her watch off and reached for his wrist to take his pulse. “His pulse is thready,” she said, more to herself than Monty.

Jasper let out a loud groan that echoed off the metal walls. “Go back to sleep!” someone shouted from the first floor of the dropship. Admittedly, the hatch was open to promote air circulation. She did have a small fire burning as a light source and none of them wanted to pass out from carbon monoxide poisoning. There were more calls from annoyed teenagers.

Clarke leaned down to whisper, “Don’t listen to them. You’re gonna make it through this, okay?” She stroked his hair. “Promise.”

“Can he just die already!” someone yelled up.

She sighed a bit. “I’m gonna get clean water,” she said as she stood. “Keep an eye on him.” Monty moved to his side as she headed for the ladder. She glared at those who were still awake on the first floor of the dropship.

The air outside the dropship was a welcome after the stuffy air of the second floor, but it was also colder. They were going to need actual shelter soon, so nobody got hypothermia. She was pretty sure they weren’t going to be able to all sleep inside the dropship. Some people outside were awake beyond the guards Bellamy had set up to patrol their makeshift wall around the camp.

A young, high voice cried out, “No!” and she looked for the source. The girl cried out again and Clarke headed in that direction. No one else seemed to care or notice the voice. Nightmares did seem pretty common amongst the teenagers. Around a few trees but within sight of the dropship Clarke saw a small body curled into a ball at the base of a tree.

She reached out for the girl. “Hey, wake up,” she said gently. Before she was done speaking the girl had gasped awake and jolted over, eyes wet and terrified. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just a dream.” The girl looked around, still scared. “You’re Charlotte, right?” She nodded slightly and hugged her knees. “I’m Clarke. It’s okay to be scared.” Clarke sat down against the tree next to Charlotte. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“It’s…my parents,” Charlotte said. She sniffled. “They were floated and they – and I see it in my dreams and I just—”

“Yeah, I understand,” Clarke said. She didn’t have that nightmare as often anymore, but she got it. “My dad was floated too.” Charlotte looked at her. “So, how’d you end up here?”

“Well…they were taking my parents’ things to the redistribution center and…I kind of lost it,” Charlotte said. “They said I assaulted a guard.”

“I can’t say I blame you.” Charlotte wiped her nose and looked away. Clarke looked up at the stars and where the Ark was. “You see that bright star up there?” she asked, pointing. “That’s the Ark, orbiting above us. I think whatever happened up there, you know, the pain…Maybe we can move past that now. Maybe being on the ground is our second chance.”

“Do you really believe that?” Charlotte asked quietly.

“I’m trying to,” she said honestly. She reached out and pulled Charlotte into a side hug, holding her close.

The next morning Jasper wasn’t any better. In fact, he almost seemed worse. She desperately wished she had a thermometer and something to combat the fever. She pulled the Grounder poultice off his spear wound to look at it. She didn’t know if the poultice was still helping, but she kept leaving it on the injury anyways.

“The Grounders cauterized the wound, saved his life,” she said, not liking the green tinge she was seeing.

“Saved his life so they could string him up for live bait,” Finn said. “Garden of Eden this ain’t,” he added, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.

“This is infected,” she said with dread. “He could be septic.” There was absolutely nothing she could do in that case. She had no way of treating sepsis down here on the ground. “Any progress on using the wristbands to contact the Ark?” she asked Monty. She needed her mom for this. Monty was just staring at Jasper. “Monty?”

“That would be a firm no,” he said quietly.

“My mother would know what to do,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. She heard someone climb up the ladder.

“How’s he doing?” Wells asked, crouching next to her. Her back stiffened.

“How does it look like he’s doing, Wells?” she asked sharply.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help.”

Clarke took a breath and paused, looking down at Jasper. She looked up and met Finn’s concerned gaze. “Right, you want to help?” she asked tightly. “Hold him down.” Wells pressed against Jasper’s legs and Finn moved away from the wall to hold Jasper’s torso. Clarke firmly didn’t look over at Monty. This was going to suck. She stuck the knife into the small fire that functioned as their light source.

“I’m not gonna like this, am I?” Monty asked.

When she figured the knife was not enough and as sterile as she could get it, she looked at Finn. “Hold him down.”

Jasper screamed as she began cutting away the infected flesh with the hot knife. From below she could hear alarmed noises and calls of concern. Clarke bit back tears as Monty jumped over to them. She couldn’t – she had to be strong. She could save Jasper, she could. His eyes rolled back in his head.

“Hold him still!” she told the other boys. “I need to cut away his infected flesh.” He stilled and Clarke reached for his neck, terrified that she wouldn’t find a pulse.

“Stop it!” Octavia said behind them as she climbed up the ladder. “You’re killing him!” She dropped next to Clarke at Jasper’s head.

“She’s trying to save his life,” Finn said calmly.

“She can’t,” Bellamy said behind her.

Wells stood. “Back off.”

“We didn’t drag him through miles of woods just to let him die,” Clarke said.

“Kid’s a goner,” Bellamy said. “If you can’t see that, you’re deluded.” Clarke gritted her teeth. “He’s making people crazy.”

“Sorry if Jasper’s an inconvenience to you,” she said, tone sharp and acidic. “But this isn’t the Ark. Down here, every life matters.”

“Take a look at him. He’s a lost cause,” Bellamy said, possibly attempting to be gentle.

Clarke looked to Octavia, who looked defeated. “Octavia, I’ve spent my whole life watching my mother heal people. If I say there’s hope, there’s hope.”

“This isn’t about hope, it’s about guts,” Bellamy said. “You don’t have the guts to make the hard choices. I do. He’s been like this for three days. If he’s not better by tomorrow, I’ll kill him myself. Octavia, let’s go.”

“I’m staying here,” Octavia said firmly without looking at her brother.

He didn’t respond to that, but Clarke heard him move down the ladder. “Power hungry, self-serving jackass,” Monty muttered. “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.” He looked at Octavia. “No offense.”

“Yeah,” Finn said softly. “Bellamy is all that. But he also happens to be right.”

Clarke looked up, stunned. “No, he’s not.”

“He’s dying and in pain,” Finn said.

“She can fix him,” Monty said. “He’s going to be fine.”

Finn looked at Monty with sad eyes. Clarke couldn’t handle that and found herself heading down the ladder and out of the dropship. She walked until she was almost at the wall and out of sight of most of the others. She couldn’t…

Footsteps made her look up only to scowl. “You can’t save everyone, Princess,” Bellamy said, though it was softer than she’d anticipated.

“I can damn well try, especially since you seem hell bent on letting everyone on the Ark die.”

His jaw tensed and his gaze narrowed. “You know what happens tomorrow,” he said and stormed off.

Clarke looked down and fought back tears. She realized the poultice was in her hands. She hadn’t actually examined it all that much since they brought Jasper back. In the light of day, the red color on the underside didn’t look so much like blood. Whatever it was, the red looked natural. She picked at it and tried to figure out what it was.

More footsteps and a shadow crossed with her face, but it was Finn, not Bellamy again.

“You’re mad,” he said, standing in front of her.

“I’m not mad,” she said. “You want to think Jasper’s a lost cause, go ahead. You’re wrong.”

“I hope I am,” Finn said.

“Whatever this stuff is, it has to have had antibiotic properties.” Finn crouched next to her.

“Let me take a look,” Wells said, walking over. “Before you refuse my help,” he added as he crouched down, “remember who aced botany in Earth Skills.” He examined the substance.

“The Grounders used it as a poultice,” she said, looking at Finn. “I’m thinking a tea might even be more effective, if we can figure out what it is.”

“I know what it is,” Wells said. “Seaweed. Look, no root structure.”

“Right. Well, then there must be a water source nearby where it grows,” she said to Finn. “We didn’t see any at the river or the waterfall.”

“Yeah, it would have to have a slow current, lots of rocks,” Wells said. “The water would probably be more red than green.”

“I know just the place,” Finn said, making Clarke suspicious. Had he been wandering out on his own?

“Alright,” she said, rising. “Let’s go.”

“Hey,” Wells called as they walked off. “I know what this stuff looks like. Do you?”

She was far from thrilled that Wells had come along with them. “You know, you should, uh, really rethink this whole hating me thing,” he said. “It’s not just the Grounders. We’re surrounded by criminals. We need each other. We’re gonna be friends again.”

“You got my dad killed. Not possible.”

“This is Earth, Clarke. Anything’s possible.”

Clarke pushed ahead, away from Wells and Finn. She could hear them speaking quietly behind her, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. She kept walking, trying to keep Wells out of her thoughts. The sound of a dull, metallic bang made her pause and glance at Finn. He was looking down and stomping on something. “What is it?” she asked.

He crouched and seemed to be brushing debris off. “It’s an automobile,” Wells said in surprise.

“Come on guys. This thing’s been here for a hundred years. Alright? It can wait. Jasper can’t.”

They finally found the river. “So, what does this seaweed look like?” she asked.

“Like that,” Wells said, pointing. “Hey, that thing that bit Octavia. How big was it?”

“Big,” Finn said. “We could rig this into some kind of a net,” he said, pulling off his pack. “Find something to lower it into the water.”

Or they could just walk in. It wasn’t like there was a guarantee of river monsters in every body of water and this one looked to shallow for the other creature anyways. So she walked out to grab a clump of the seaweed. Plus, it’d sort of be like a bath and washing her clothes. Maybe.

“Or we could just do that,” Finn said.

As she reached the shore with her clump of seaweed, birds began to squawk in the distance. Then, a swarm of them burst out over the trees, followed by a pale orange cloud. The birds flew at them and they ducked down to avoid them. The cloud moved slowly.

“Let’s get out of here,” Wells said. She quickly grabbed her bag and shoved the seaweed into Finn’s. She really didn’t like how the birds had reacted to that cloud.

A bellowing horn sounded, carrying through the air. It sounded far enough away, but she didn’t like that either. “Grounders?” she asked.

“It could be a war cry,” Wells said.

“Or a warning,” Finn suggested. They looked at the cloud. It had grown and had picked up speed. “What the hell is that?”

“Run,” she said. “Run!”

Scrambling through the woods in terror had gotten old quickly when Jasper had been stabbed. Finn was leading them and stopped abruptly. They were at the car, she realized when he hauled the door up. She dropped down first, coughing and lungs burning from the fog that had reached them. Wells followed and then Finn, who slammed the door shut.

Orange yellow air seeped through the cracks. “It’s getting inside,” she said, reaching for fabric hanging on the side of the car.

“Seal up any openings,” Finn said. Clarke started plugging fabric in the cracks, skin burning. They sealed the holes and sat, catching their breath. It was dim in the car, the fog blocking most of the sun. “It’s still up there,” Finn said after a while.

“Look, maybe we should just make a run for it,” she said. “Jasper can’t wait much longer.” Bellamy would probably wind up killing Jasper first thing in the morning if they didn’t get back.

“Us dying in a cloud of acid fog isn’t gonna help Jasper,” Finn said. She looked away and he went back to prying one of the compartments open. She heard the tink of metal on glass and turned back to see Finn held a bottle with some liquid in it.

“Is that,” she started to ask.

“Booze,” Finn said. “Hooch. Rotgut.” He climbed to the back of the car and sat. Clarke leaned towards him as he tried to open the bottle. He finally managed and started to take a sip.

“Whoa, careful. Finn, it could be—”

“Whiskey, I think,” he said, wincing. “Better than moonshine on Agro Station.” He held it out to Wells, who didn’t take it.

“Alcohol’s toxic.”

“This is Earth,” Finn said. “Everything’s toxic. Plus, it’s a time-honored rite of passage.”

“We’ll pass,” Wells said.

Clarke grabbed the bottle. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of tradition,” she said before taking a swig. It burned on the way down and once it settled in her stomach. She handed the bottle back to Finn and wondered how bad the moonshine was.

Sometime later she and Finn had mostly finished the bottle. Mostly her. She was slouched over against one of the seat backs. “It’s been hours,” she said, looking at Finn. “Jasper—”

“Is in good hands,” Finn said. “Octavia will take care of him.”

“While we’re on the subject, why is it that everyone thinks me wanting Jasper to _not_ die is a bad thing? Like I’m such a downer. I can be fun.” Finn let out a laugh. “Yeah. You think I’m fun, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Finn said. “Among other things.”

“You’re fun,” Wells said sharply. He looked away. “You – you remember that time—”

“Remember that time you betrayed me and got my father executed?” She made eye contact with Wells. “Yeah, I remember. Where were we? Fun.”

“Yeah,” Finn said slowly.

“Well, since you brought it up, and I didn’t, because I don’t want to talk about it, what were you thinking?” she asked, voice cracking at the end.

Wells opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, “I made a mistake, Clarke.”

She scoffed. “I made a mistake, Clarke,” she repeated. She shook her head. “Not good enough. She sniffed. “You know, I bet you couldn’t wait to run to daddy. Tell him everything so he could finally believe you were the perfect son he always wanted.”

“What do you want me to say?” Wells burst out, shouting.

“I want an explanation.”

Wells looked terrified. “I can’t give you one. I thought I could trust him.”

She shook her head and sat back. “Well, I thought I could trust my best friend. Guess we were both wrong.”

“I’m still your friend.”

“No, you’re not. If you were my friend, you would walk out into that fog and never come back.”

“Okay,” Finn said. “How about we just…take it easy.” He took the bottle from her.

“I have no idea how to do that,” she said bitterly.

Wells took the bottle and took a sip. “So, we having fun yet?” Finn asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely have googled "hydroponic ____" so many times to check on the type of food the Ark or Mount Weather could have. Apparently you can grow peanuts hydroponically so they could have peanut butter.


	4. Chapter 4

She passed out at some point and woke up with a staggering headache and a mouth that tasted terrible. Finn smirked at her and said the fog was gone. They climbed out of the car and Clarke had a sudden fear that Bellamy was going to make good on his performance before they could get back.

She kept ahead of the boys, moving quickly to get back to the dropship. Wells rushed ahead at some point. “Trapped in a hundred-year-old car by toxic fog,” Finn said. “Whew. Last night was pretty…what’s the word? Fun.”

“It wasn’t fun. It was irresponsible. We should’ve left the second the fog cleared.”

“Even if the fog cleared, we’d never make it back through these woods at night,” Finn pointed out. “You were kind of rough on Wells.”

“Hardly.”

“He’s a pretty straight up guy. And he loves you. You know that, right? But every time your dad comes up, he won’t give you a straight answer. Makes me think he’s hiding something. So, I gotta ask you. How sure are you that Wells was the one who turned in your dad?”

“100%. Alright? He’s the only one I told.”

“Is he the only one who knew?” It took a second for the question to sink in. No, there was no way. It was Wells for sure.

A scream disrupted her train of thought. “Who was that?” she asked. A scream rang out again and she took off running. Then another scream rang out and she picked up the pace. When she reached the source, she saw Bellamy’s back and a body lying prone in front of him, but it hadn’t been Bellamy who screamed. He must have sensed her behind him because he turned his head to see her out of the corner of his eye. She moved forward and realized the trembling body was Atom. When she dropped down opposite Bellamy, she saw he loosely held a knife in his hand.

Atom was a mess, his skin bloody and burned. There was blood on his lips and his eyes had a white film over them. The fog…she wasn’t sure how he was still alive. He had to be in immense pain.

“I heard screams,” she said softly.

“Charlotte found him,” Bellamy explained. She looked up at him. He looked uncertain and like he was waiting for her to answer a question he already knew the answer to. “I sent her back to camp.” She looked down at Atom and then back up at Bellamy. She shook her head. He swallowed heavily and looked down. She took a breath to steel herself. He was in no shape to do what needed to be done regardless of what he’d said about Jasper only the day before.

“Okay,” she said softly with a smile she didn’t feel. Atom couldn’t see her, but he could hear her, and you could hear a smile even if you couldn’t see it. “I’m gonna help you, alright?” She stroked his hair and started humming, trying to soothe him the way her father had when she was small. She looked up at Bellamy who was just staring at her, tears pooling in his eyes. She took the knife from him and tried not to let her own tears clog her throat. She took the knife and cut into Atom’s jugular, continuing to hum as he bled out and died as quickly and painlessly as she could make it for him. She could feel Bellamy’s heavy gaze on her.

Footsteps in the woods made her look up and Bellamy tensed. It was just Finn and Wells though and both boys looked shocked at what they saw in front of them. She looked back down to Atom to avoid their gazes. “What happened?” Finn asked. Neither Clarke nor Bellamy said anything, but she did look up at him. There was something there, some trace of thanks and respect and something else.

“We should take him back to camp,” Wells said. “Bury him with the others.”

“Octavia will want to see him,” Bellamy finally said quietly.

Bellamy insisted on carrying Atom, but Wells suggested making a stretcher instead. The stretcher took a while to make, both between finding the materials and lashing the branches together. Due to that delay and the slower pace due to the stretcher, it was dark by the time they returned to the dropship. Clarke had tried not to think about what Finn had said, but she couldn’t help but think about it.

As she and Finn walked in first someone called out that they were back and some of the kids stood, looking relieved to see her and Finn. “We’ve gotta get to Jasper,” Clarke said to Finn, but she wasn’t actually worried about Bellamy’s threat, not after how he’d looked at her over Atom’s body. “I’ll need boiled water to make the medicine.” She kept walking to the dropship and knew the instant Bellamy and Wells brought the stretcher in based on the hush that fell over the area. She had assumed that Jones and the others would have said how he’d been found when they returned to camp, but it didn’t seem like it.

“Get Clarke whatever she needs,” she heard Bellamy say behind her.

Octavia rushed out of the dropship. “It’s about time,” she huffed, and Clarke’s heart sank. No one had told her about Atom. Jones and the others _hadn’t_ said anything when they came back. “They’re gonna kill Jasper. Did you get the medicine?”

“Yeah. I – I got it,” Clarke said. She grabbed for Octavia’s shoulders and tried to turn her from the gate. “Come on, let’s go talk.” But it was too late, and Octavia moved towards her brother.

“Octavia, just stay there. Please stay back,” he said and tried to hold her back.

“Why?” Octavia asked. “Bell, stop.” Octavia pushed past him, and he just waited.

They’d put Atom’s jacket over him so as soon as Octavia moved the jacket her shoulders trembled. “There’s nothing I could do,” Bellamy said desperately.

Octavia held up a hand and Clarke took a step forward. “Don’t,” Octavia said harshly. She covered Atom again and stood, heading for the dropship.

Bellamy reached for her and said, “O, O, please.”

“Don’t,” Octavia bit out and pushed past him and then Clarke, storming into the dropship. Clarke didn’t move and watched as Murphy ambled over to Bellamy. She couldn’t hear what they said, but suddenly Bellamy grabbed Murphy and shoved him, anger evident on his face.

“My what? My what?” Clarke watched, frozen. Murphy said something else and shoved Bellamy off of him. Bellamy said something in response. Murphy stared him down, but it looked like there was fear on his face. Bellamy stepped back and pointed at Atom’s body. “Get him out of here.” Two boys grabbed the stretcher and Bellamy walked away.

Clarke, for some reason, wanted to follow him. But Finn came back and said, “Terra had water already boiling. We’re good to go.”

She looked in the direction Bellamy had stalked off one last time before heading to the fire. Up in the dropship Monty was waiting anxiously. They had to wait for the tea to cool, but once it was Octavia helped her tip it into Jasper’s mouth. He swallowed on his own, which was a good sign. Clarke looked up at Octavia and tried to find the right thing to say. “I’m sorry about Atom,” she decided on.

Octavia’s eyes were wet, but she didn’t look like she was going to cry. “I guess we’re going to have to get used to people dying down here, aren’t we?” She looked down at Jasper. “But not you, you hear me?” she whispered. “You’re not allowed to die.”

Clarke smiled softly. “I’ll be back,” she said. “I have to go do something.” She met Finn’s gaze and nodded slightly. She slipped out of the gate and saw Wells digging the grave alone. “Wells?” she asked quietly and felt tears fill her eyes as she walked towards him. “I know I probably don’t deserve it, but I need to know the truth.” She swallowed heavily. “It was my mom, wasn’t it?” Wells looked away. “She’s the one who told your dad. I didn’t want to believe it. I – I couldn’t. I blamed you because my father’s dead and it’s my mother’s fault. Isn’t it?” He didn’t respond. “Wells…please.”

“I knew how you would feel,” he finally said. “I wanted to—”

“To protect me.” Neither spoke for a moment. “So you let me hate you.”

“What are friends for?” he asked softly.

“How can you ever forgive me?”

He smiled. “Because it’s already done.” He pulled her into a hug, and she started crying. After a while she pulled her head back.

“I have to go back to Jasper. We can talk tomorrow, tell me everything I missed.”

“I’d like that,” he said, smiling widely.

She went to find Bellamy first. He was talking to Miller and she heard him say, “We’ll need some sort of protection from the fog if we’re out there,” as she walked over.

“Clarke,” Miller said as she walked over, nodding a greeting.

Bellamy turned. “Is Jasper?” he asked, trailing off.

“Octavia and Monty took good care of him while we were gone. His fever seems to have gone down even if it hasn’t broken yet. I gave him some tea and I’ll give some to Octavia too. Her leg’s fine, but it can’t hurt.”

“Thanks,” he said. Miller backed away from them behind Bellamy’s back. “I – is there anything else you need?”

“Painkillers,” she shrugged. At his surprised look she explained. “If you find any willow trees on any hunting trips, bring me some bark back. It’s what’s in aspirin.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said. He looked past her to the others. He didn’t seem angry anymore, just upset.

“I don’t think Octavia’s mad at you, just the situation,” she said hesitantly. “I’ll look out for her until she’s less pissed though.”

“I told Atom to stay away from her,” he said without looking at her. “She knows too. So yeah, I think she’s mad at me.” He looked back at her. “I hope Jasper’s okay.”

“Me too,” she said and turned back to the dropship.

As she reached the second floor of the dropship, she heard Jasper say, “Was that a dream or did I get speared?” He was awake and looked to her.

“You’ll have an impressive scar to prove it,” she said.

“My savior,” he said.

“Thank you,” she told him, kneeling down next to him. “For not dying.” She smiled. “I don’t think I could have taken that today.”

“I’ll try not to die tomorrow, too, if that’s cool.” He finally looked over to see Octavia. “Oh, hello!” They all stared down at him, smiling until he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Jasper actually woke up in the morning, which was definitely a good sign. She headed down to get him some more tea, check if there was any bone broth left for him, and to find Wells. They had a lot of catching up to do. As soon as she stepped out of the dropship, she saw Bellamy standing at the end of the ramp, pacing anxiously. She assumed he was there for Octavia and said, “Octavia’s fine. She’s still sleeping. And Jasper woke up last night, so he’s…” She trailed off at the serious expression on his face.

“Clarke,” he said gently, stepping forward to take her arm. “We need to talk. I went to patrol the outside of the wall this morning.” He stopped and bit his lip. “I, uh – outside I found—”

“Where’s Wells?”

“Clarke,” he said gently, horrifically gently. She tried to take a step back, but he held tight to her arm.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. Where’s Wells?”

“He was already gone when I found him,” Bellamy said. Clarke felt her breath hitch. “I – I’m sorry.”

“No,” she said. “You’re wrong. He’s not – no.”

“What’s going on?” Finn asked suspiciously from behind them.

“Grounders killed Wells outside the walls,” Bellamy said, still holding eye contact with Clarke. “He was in the graveyard.”

Clarke blinked back tears, breath catching in her throat. _The graveyard_. “No. I – I left him there. We’re going to talk this morning. He’s not – where is he?”

“Clarke, you don’t want to,” Bellamy started to say, but she pulled out of his grasp and started walking for the gate. He reached for her, but she felt his fingers only grasp at her jacket. Nathan was standing at the gate and tried to stop her as well, but she pushed past him and his sad expression too.

There were two people out there, but Clarke didn’t pay them any attention as she collapsed next to Wells. Tears blurred her vision and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. He looked like he was sleeping if not for the wound in his throat and the splash of crimson on his shirt. She reached out and just held her hand out over his arm, afraid to touch him. She could hear some sort of noise, something anguished sounding. She only realized it was her sobs and that she was shaking when someone wrapped their arms around her. She didn’t know who it was, and she didn’t really care. Wells was dead.

At some point she was aware of a different set of arms wrapping around her and lifting her up to carry her. She didn’t – she couldn’t think beyond _Wells is dead Wells is dead Wells is dead_.

Eventually she slowly realized there was something cold and wet on the back of her neck and something warm was pressed into her hands. She blinked, bringing the world back into hazy focus. She jerked, and something hot spilled out over her hand.

“Hey, it’s me, it’s just me.” Clarke blinked again and saw Octavia kneeling in front of her. She steadied the cup in between Clarke’s hands. “It’s leftover broth. You need food.”

Clarke blinked slowly. “Where’s Wells?”

Octavia looked at her, expression concerned and sad. “Clarke, he’s gone, remember?”

“I remember,” Clarke said. “Where is he?”

“Bell took care of it – him,” she said. “It’s past dinner now. Bellamy buried him this morning with Miller’s help.”

Clarke felt water trail down her neck and looked down at the cup in her hands. She stared at it and vaguely thought about drinking it. Her head hurt. Octavia rose and moved behind her, sitting down. Her fingers untied the knot that held Clarke’s hair back and started combing through.

Clarke looked up from the mug and realized she was in a tent. “Where am I?” she asked.

“Bellamy’s tent,” Octavia said. “He brought you here so you could have some privacy.” Her fingers kept combing through hair soothingly. “Jasper’s fine,” she added. “Monty’s been with him and Finn’s been ferrying messages back and forth between us. Bell’s stopped by a couple times to check on you too. He keeps asking if you’ve had anything to drink.”

Huh. That was probably why her head hurt. She raised the cup to her lips and drank. “What’s on my neck?”

“Cold, damp cloth,” Octavia said. “Thought it might help.” She didn’t speak for a few moments. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Finn said the two of you made up last night.” Clarke nodded. “Do you want to go see him?” she asked hesitantly.

“I should check on Jasper,” Clarke said.

“Jasper’s fine,” Bellamy said as he stepped into the tent. “He’s woken up four or five times today. He’s drinking and eating the stuff Monty found. Sleep is good for healing, right?” She didn’t say anything and kept staring at the ground.

The next morning, she woke in the dropship, Monty a few feet away and Jasper slightly snoring. She stared up at the metal ceiling and thought _My father is dead. My mother’s the reason why. If she hadn’t turned him in, he would’ve told everyone, I wouldn’t have been arrested, and Wells wouldn’t have set that fucking tree on fire and he wouldn’t have been down here_.

She still felt like she couldn’t breathe, her head hurt, her eyes hurt, her throat hurt, but her tears were gone. She left the dropship and ventured out into the early morning chill. Very few people were awake at the early, barely dawn hour. People were clustered together in groups sleeping to conserve warmth. She took a seat by the big fire in one of the jumpseats they’d hauled out of the dropship the first day. The warmth of the fire felt comforting as she stared into the flames.

Her mother had gone to Jaha and turned her father in. She hadn’t told Clarke about it. She’d held Clarke close and wept with her as they watched her father die. Her mother had worn her father’s ring around her neck ever since. Clarke had gone into the Skybox hating Wells and his father with every fiber of her being. Her mother had let that happen. She had hated Wells when she should’ve hated her mother.

Abigail Griffin was to blame for so many things.

Someone sat down next to her and she glanced over to see Nathan. Or was it Miller now? Octavia and Bellamy seemed to call him that. He held out a cup to her, shaking it. Something in it rattled. “Hungry?” he asked.

“Thought the rule was wristband means no food,” she said, eyeing his bare wrist.

“Yeah, he stopped that yesterday,” Miller said. He shook the cup again and she took it from him. “I didn’t – it was before you said the bit about the CO2 scrubbers,” he added while she picked out a nut. She looked at it suspiciously. “Monty says it’s a walnut.”

“Thanks,” she said. He stood and clasped her shoulder, leaving it there for a few seconds before walking off.

Later once others began to stir, Finn plopped down next to her. “Bellamy wants Monty and me to go out hunting. Or out with the hunting party anyways.” She looked at him in alarm. He couldn’t go out there. “We’ll be fine.”

“But the Grounders—”

“Bellamy wants, like, twenty of us to go,” Finn said.

“I – okay. We need the food,” she said, but the worry didn’t dissipate. She was going to feel worried until they returned. She looked back at the fire, frowning. “I still don’t like it.”

“I’m not thrilled with it either,” Finn said. “But we need the food.” He sighed. “We’re going as soon as he rounds everyone else up.”

It apparently didn’t take Bellamy long to round the others up since he called for Finn only a few moments later. They both went to the gate where the large group of 20 teenagers was gathered. Monty moved to meet them as he walked out of the dropship. “You gonna be okay?” he asked her.

“Yeah. If Jasper’s up to it, he should try walking around today,” Clarke said. She reached for his hand. “Stay safe.”

He squeezed her hand. “I will. Jasper’s a klutz, make sure he doesn’t trip and undo everything you’ve done to fix him up.”

“Alright, listen up,” Bellamy called. “If you’re gonna split up, don’t go in groups of less than 5 and make sure to check in with each other before you do. Stay alert both for Grounders and for the fog. Half of you know where the caves are, so make sure you’re with someone who does. The Grounders are watching us, and we can’t afford to get sloppy. Murphy and Miller are in charge. Be back before sundown, so keep in mind how far you get from here and how long it’ll take to get back.”

Clarke looked over the assembled group. Murphy looked smug and smirked at the others from where he stood near Bellamy. Nathan didn’t look smug. He kind of looked like he was channeling his dad actually.

“Alright, let’s go,” Nathan said and headed out of the gate. The others started following after him, filing out of the camp. Monty was the last to walk out and smiled before he fully left the camp and the gate closed behind him. She hoped that everything went fine out there. They were going to bring back food and things would be fine. She wasn’t going to lose anyone else today.

She turned and headed to the dropship to check on Jasper. Hopefully, Octavia would help get Jasper up and moving. When she reached the second floor, she found Jasper sitting up with Octavia’s help. “They gone?” Octavia asked.

“How many went out? Do they have weapons?” Jasper asked, fear evident on his face.

“I told you, we’ve made weapons,” Octavia said. “Bell’s got some stupid axe he made. He’s got it strapped to his thigh at all times like a moron.”

“Twenty of them left. Bellamy said to stay in groups of at least five,” Clarke said. “Jones, Mbege, Monroe, Murphy, and Nathan went with Monty, Finn, and all the others.”

“Fuck Murphy,” Octavia said. “Wait, who’s Nathan?”

“Miller,” Clarke said, shrugging. “I’ve always known him as Nathan, not Miller.”

“How do you know him?” Octavia asked.

“His dad’s a sergeant in the guard. I mean, we weren’t exactly friends growing up, but we knew each other.” Wells had been her only friend on the Ark. She looked to Jasper. “You think you’re up to standing? Maybe walking around camp?”

“I – standing maybe,” he said hesitantly.

“You’re going to need to walk at some point,” Octavia said. “Why not surprise Monty when he gets back? And you’ve been in here for days. Don’t you want to see the sun?”

“Yeah,” Jasper said wistfully. “Okay.”

Getting Jasper down the ladder was a little difficult and hurt, but between the three of them Jasper got to the parachute door, both Octavia and Clarke supporting him. She wished she’d remembered to tell Monty about willow bark before they left. At the dropship entrance, Jasper seemed reluctant to move.

“The camp’s changed a lot since you last saw it,” Clarke said. “We built a wall, which we’re improving and expanding, and we’ve got a gate. Bellamy has people watching from the wall and gate all the time.”

Jasper nodded. “Okay. Let’s go outside. I want to see daylight.” They all shuffled forward through the parachute. “Wow. That’s a wall. How’d you manage that?”

“Deforestation and scraps from the dropship,” Clarke said. “It started small, but it’s expanding now.”

“We were more worried about getting one up as quick as possible,” Octavia said. “You ready for the tour?”

They shuffled around the camp, showing Jasper everything that had been accomplished since they’d set out for Mount Weather. Every step Jasper took was stronger, which Clarke was deeply pleased by. Their pace was slow, but steady. A few of the kids came up to say hi to Jasper, halting the work on the walls or weapons. Clarke half expected Bellamy to tell everyone to go back to work, but he didn’t. Instead, he hovered in her periphery, watching them.

After the first lap around the camp and they’d reached the dropship’s ramp, Jasper said, “That…was a lot.”

“Do you want to rest?” Octavia asked. “You can sit by the fire.”

“And you should eat something,” Clarke said. “Drink some water too.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jasper said. They got him set up in one of the jumpseats with nuts and water. “You don’t have to hover,” he said when they were doing just that.

“You’re fine on your own?” Clarke asked.

“I’m not alone,” Jasper said, gesturing out, which made him wince. “Go. You’ve hovered enough for days now.”

“Okay, yell if you need anything. I’m going to clean up the second floor,” Clarke said.

“I’ll help,” Octavia said. “We should put the seaweed somewhere more accessible too.”

“That stuff doesn’t taste good,” Jasper said, making a face.

“That stuff saved your life,” Clarke said. “We’ll be back.” She headed for the dropship, Octavia close behind her.

Up on the second floor, Clarke had to sit on the raised platform to let the relief over Jasper settle. “I’m really glad you saved him,” Octavia said.

“Me too,” Clarke said, rubbing at her face. “I – honestly, there were a few moments I wasn’t sure.”

Octavia sat down next to her. “How much medical training did you actually get? You were in the Skybox for what, a year?”

“Ten months, give or take,” Clarke said. “Six months of an internship. They start the June of the year you turn 16. Or, if you and your placement _really_ don’t work, the January of the next year. But you’re still taking classes on top of it. And it was a lot of inventory, medical files, general check-ups. Nothing like a spear to the chest.” She sighed and stood, twisting her back to work out a kink before raising her arms over her head to stretch out her back.

Octavia let out a quiet gasp and Clarke looked down at her. “A pomegranate,” she said, and Clarke froze, arms still in the air. “Sorry. Your shirt rode up and your pants…Sorry. I was surprised.”

“You know what it is?” Clarke asked, arms slowly lowering to her sides.

“Bellamy told me,” Octavia said cautiously. Clarke’s eyes widened. “I – I’m not going to tell him.”

“What? Your – Bellamy?” she asked, horrified to hear her voice squeak at the end.

“Yeah. Look, I’m not going to tell him, I promise. _If_ he’s going to find out, it should come from you.”

Clarke sat back down heavily. “Your brother. Jesus Christ. He hates me.” Though the past couple of days he hadn’t been acting like he hated her. “And I don’t—”

“Soulmates and soulmarks don’t have to mean anything,” Octavia said. “Bell’s always been a nerd about them because of Greek mythology, but I don’t think I believe in them. So, who knows?”

Clarke didn’t know what to think about the new information. Bellamy Blake, the asshole who didn’t care if everyone on the Ark died. The asshole who threatened to murder Jasper. But he was also the guy who’d looked broken over Atom’s body. The guy who’d buried Wells. Fuck.

It did not help that he was ridiculously attractive.

“His is behind his ear,” Octavia said. When Clarke looked at her, she tapped behind her left ear. “When I was, like, I don’t know, five, I asked him what it was. Why we had them. He, being the nerd he is, told me about how Zeus made humans with four arms, four legs, two heads, and one heart. He split them in two and Aphrodite – or Hera depending on the interpretation apparently – marked their bodies so they could find one another again. Then to explain the pomegranate thing he told me about Hades and Persephone.”

“I’d wondered, once we found out about the Grounders, if my soulmate was somewhere here on Earth. This is not what I’d imagined.”

“Well,” Octavia said, bumping Clarke’s shoulder with her own. “You may be an Alpha princess, but you’re not the _worst_ person. Murphy could be his soulmate. Or yours.”

Clarke made a face at that. “Well. Fuck. I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Octavia said. The two girls sat in silence for a few minutes. “Mine’s some sort of weird crow thing,” she said and leaned down to untie her right boot. She pulled it and her sock off to reveal the dark image Clarke had briefly seen before.

It was a bird in flight, with feathers of inky blacks and shimmering greens, blues, and purples. It covered the width of Octavia’s ankle and looked like it might be moving.

“It’s beautiful,” she told Octavia. “We should actually clean up and get back to Jasper.”

“I mean, Bell is an ass so I wouldn’t necessarily blame you if you never told him,” Octavia said as she put her boot back on.

They hauled all the medical things and blankets down to the first floor of the dropship quickly enough and ventured out of the dropship to find rain had begun to softly fall, misting through the air. Jasper was still sitting by the fire, but his head was tipped back now, and he was smiling.

Clarke walked over and said, “Back in the dropship. You’re not getting sick from the rain after all of this.”

He frowned up at her. “It’s rain, Clarke. _Rain_. I want to stay here. Don’t make me go back in the dropship.”

“He can sit at the woodpile,” Bellamy said from behind her. She didn’t turn to face him. She couldn’t look at him now, knowing what she knew. She didn’t know what to think or do with the information, but she at least knew she needed time to deal with it. Instead she looked to where they’d put the wood pile in the space between the bulk of the dropship and the engines that stuck out. They’d strung a tarp over it to keep the rain off the wood. It was actually a good compromise that would let Jasper sit outside, but still stay dry.

“If the wind picks up or it starts raining harder, you’re in the dropship, okay?” Clarke said, looking back at Jasper. He grinned up at her.

The rain never picked up, but Clarke kept her eye on Jasper anyways as she helped work on the wall. To Bellamy’s annoyance, Octavia had helped those making weapons. He was hovering near her, making weapons only a few feet away. Clarke was working on the wall at the gate, which meant that as she watched Jasper, she found her eyes glancing towards Bellamy.

She’d thought about her soulmate, what they’d be like, if they’d like her, and other things kids thought about. She and Wells had compared marks as soon as her father had explained them to her. Neither of them had known what Clarke’s was, but Wells had a tiny constellation of either the Big or Little Dipper on the back of his right wrist. Jaha hadn’t told Wells what they were or what they meant yet. (Later, when they were fourteen, Clarke and Wells found out that his parents had been soulmates.)

As they’d grown and understood more of how soulmates worked on the Ark, they’d realized the chances of finding their soulmate were pretty slim. It didn’t keep her from wondering about them, but instead of childish thoughts about whether they’d like drawing and Disney movies, she wondered what station they’d be from, what they’re job was, and if they’d be a good parent.

But she hadn’t imagined Bellamy Blake.

He was unfairly attractive. He was brash and acted without thinking. He deeply cared for his sister, to the point of not thinking through consequences through. He was charismatic and had easily convinced the others to follow his leadership. That didn’t mean she _liked_ his leadership, especially not in the first few days. But he had saved her when she had started to fall into the pit, and he would’ve been better off if she was dead.

She really didn’t know what to think about how the universe thought they were meant to be. 

Still, she couldn’t help but look at him throughout the morning. A few times she caught him looking back at her. Each time she blushed and looked back at what she was working on. The fact that _he_ was looking at _her_ was interesting, if not confusing. And maybe it was something she liked.

The hunting party returned midafternoon with a number of animals in tow. Monty bounded up to her, a wide grin on his face. “Look!” he said and shrugged his pack off and opened the top. “I found a willow tree!”

There was a lot of bark in there. She was glad he’d thought of it. “Monty, this is great! Jasper could definitely use some.”

“Bellamy suggested it before we left,” Monty said.

“Bellamy?” she asked, surprised. She glanced over where he was standing with Miller. He’d suggested it to Monty? He’d remembered that? He looked up and met her gaze. Instead of looking away as she had all morning, she held it and smiled at him. A second later, he smiled back at her. God, he was so unfairly attractive. She had to think about that for a moment. He was hot, that was a given. But she’d not really paid attention to it before now. Was it just because she knew he was her soulmate that he was now _unfairly_ attractive? Should she be thinking he was attractive. He was still an asshole. 

“So, what do we do with it?” Monty asked.

“Hm?” Clarke asked and broke eye contact with Bellamy to look back at Monty. “Oh. We can boil that too.”

“Hey, Clarke,” Finn said, appearing next to them. “You got Jasper out of the dropship?”

“Ah, yes,” Clarke said, looking at Finn. Somehow looking at him now felt different than it had that morning. She was relieved to see that he and Monty had returned, but…Huh. The burgeoning crush that had been developing felt different now. The fluttery feeling in her stomach wasn’t gone, but it certainly wasn’t as strong as when Bellamy had just smiled at her. Well. That was both annoying and interesting. Literally the only thing that had changed was the knowledge that Bellamy had a tiny pomegranate behind his ear.

“I’m going to check on Jasper,” Monty said, heading off.

“Here, I found this,” Finn said and pulled something out from behind his back. The bright purples and whites grabbed her attention. “Monty said they’re pansies.”

“They’re wonderful,” Clarke said, taking them from him. She smiled at him when she looked away from them. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Finn said cheekily. “I’m going to go help deal with the animals we brought in. Gotta get dinner ready.”

He headed off and Clarke looked back down at the flowers. They were lovely and a boy had brought her flowers like in the movies they’d watched on the Ark. She lifted them to her nose and smiled widely. They smelled lovely. She lowered them and glanced back over towards Bellamy. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, but he was still talking with Miller, though his jaw seemed tense. She wondered if something had happened while the hunters were out. Everyone had come back and nobody looked injured.

Her smile fell and she looked back down at the flowers. Had Wells seen flowers? She’d seen the poison sumac flowers, but she didn’t know if he’d seen them. She stared at them for a moment longer, thought about keeping them like the deer she carried in her jacket pocket, and then headed for the gate.

It was still open, and nobody was really paying that much attention so she just walked out. A few feet out she could see the four graves laid out and she froze, clutching the pansies in her hand. The third one was Atom’s, but the fourth, the one on the end…

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” Bellamy said behind her.

“I don’t know if Wells ever saw flowers,” she said, staring at his grave. “I wanted—”

Bellamy stepped up next to her. “I don’t know either,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“You didn’t even like him,” she said, tears starting to blur her vision.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry,” Bellamy said, shrugging.

Clarke forced herself to move forward and knelt down at the foot of Wells’s grave. “I left him out here alone,” she said, breath hitching on a sob.

“It’s not your fault,” Bellamy said. “None of us could have anticipated they’d get so close to us.”

She poked a finger into the dirt in front of her, making a hole to put the pansies in. She wiped her tears away with her other hand and looked at the shovel at the top of the grave. “Thank you,” she said, looking back at Bellamy. “For this. And for when I found out.”

Bellamy shrugged, though he looked a bit embarrassed. “It wasn’t a big deal. He deserves a grave.”

“Still,” Clarke said, looking back at the grave. “You didn’t have to do it. Thank you.” She stood and turned to him. “I mean it.” She gave him a watery smile. “What did everyone catch?”

“Some rabbits, two deer, but they found a lake with some fish. We just have to figure out _how_ to fish,” he said, and she headed back towards the gate. “Monty found some more of what he’s calling walnuts.”

“Thanks for telling him about the willows,” she said, glancing sideways at him. “I forgot.”

She could almost swear that he was blushing. “Well, you said we needed it.”

“Clarke!” Monty shouted from the cookfire. “How long is this supposed to boil?”

“Do you actually know how this stuff works or are you just guessing?” Bellamy asked.

“Mix of both,” Clarke shrugged. “I should go help him though.”

Bellamy nodded. “You should get some water boiling for the broth once you’re done with that.”

Clarke stood next to him for another second before moving towards Monty. She really hadn’t imagined anyone like Bellamy as her soulmate. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nicole is the name of the actress who plays "satisfied girl" aka the first girl Bellamy sleeps with on the show. I went through the full IMDB listing to get the names of as many delinquents as I could and found out Murphy bullies Manny Jacinto in one episode and that Osric Chau is also a delinquent.

When she woke in the morning, she had only one thought in mind. She didn’t sneak out of the camp. She wanted someone to know she was going outside to Wells’s grave. Nathan – Miller now, not Nathan. _Miller_ didn’t exactly look concerned when she turned down his offer to just stand outside with her, but he did narrow his gaze even as he dragged the gate aside. He didn’t fully close it behind her, leaving a foot of space, and made it very clear that he was going to stand just behind it the whole time.

She knelt down in front of the grave like she had the previous night and tears blurred her vision like they had as well. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you. If I hadn’t gone to check on Jasper…” She wiped at the tears, but they kept coming. “I miss you. I miss you so much. I – I wish you hadn’t let me hate you. I missed so much with you even with as little time as there was between my dad and my arrest, but down here too. You were my first friend, my only friend. I can’t – what am I supposed to do now without you?”

She rubbed at her nose and stared down at the flowers Finn had given her the night before. “I know who my soulmate is. We promised we’d tell each other if we found them. You’d hate it, who he is,” she said quietly. “You did hate him.” But he’d dug a grave and buried Wells anyways. “If I meet your soulmate – I don’t know. Would they want to know you’re dead? I’d want to tell them everything about you, but I don’t know if they’d want to know. I miss you so much it hurts to breathe sometimes, like it did after my dad.”

She didn’t know how long she’d been by Wells’s grave in the end, but her tears had dried and she was just angry. The Grounders had killed him just outside their walls. They’d done this, taken him away from her when she’d only just gotten him back.

She heard footsteps behind her and whirled, knife in hand, only to see Finn. “You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he said, and she blinked, remembering Bellamy saying those exact words the day before. “If I was a Grounder…” She huffed and put her knife away. “They got Wells just outside the wall.”

“Says the guy who just spent another night exploring the woods all by himself.”

He didn’t even look sorry. Instead he smiled and pointed to himself. “But I’m reckless and irresponsible.” He paused when she looked away. “I got you something.” She looked back at him. He held out both hands before snapping with his fingers while flicking his wrists. There, in his right hand, was a flash of bright, light blue.

A pencil. A _colored_ pencil.

She lit up and took it from him. “Where did you get this?” she asked, looking at it. She’d never seen a colored pencil before. Any that had been brought to the Ark with the first survivors had been used up and discarded long ago. And it looked new, with a precise point and the wood was hard, not soft like she thought it would be after almost a century.

“The art supply store,” Finn said.

She looked up at him and smiled slightly before it fell. “You know, when we were kids…Wells was always giving me ink, charcoal…just anything I could draw with really. I found out later that he was trading his own stuff to give it to me. He didn’t want me to know that either.” She looked down at the ground. “He let me hate him so that I wouldn’t hate my mother.”

“I know,” Finn said.

She looked up at him. “My mother killed my father.” He seemed to struggle with what to say and when he didn’t respond, she said, “I just wish there was something I could do. To tell her I know. Make her feel what I’m—” She paused. Actually, there was a way. She walked past Finn to the gate.

“Where are you going?” Finn asked.

“To make her feel it,” she said. “Nath—Miller, you still there?”

“Yeah,” he said, sticking his head into the open gap. “You coming back in?” She nodded and headed straight for the dropship. Hopefully Monty was awake and in there.

He was and Clarke marched over to him and held her wrist out. “Take it off,” she said.

“What?” he asked, startled.

“Take it off. Use it to contact the Ark,” she said. “You need a functioning one. Try mine.”

“I – you’re sure?” Monty asked hesitantly. “Your mom—”

“Either you take it off or I try to do it and I’ll definitely break it.”

“Okay,” Monty said.

Prying the wristband out of her arm hurt a lot, but she felt darkly pleased that it would hurt her mother more. Her mother should hurt the way she hurt.

“Yes!” Monty whispered as he looked at the wristband. “I did it!” When she looked up at him he said, “It’s still operational.”

She smiled and stood as Monty started working. Finn was standing just inside the dropship’s doorway. “What?” she asked him defensively. “Monty needed a working wristband.”

“And you needed to punish your mother,” Finn said.

Clarke scoffed. “Look, they’re running out of air and we need their help. My mother thinking I’m dead is only temporary.”

“Not if I can’t patch it through the dropship mainframe,” Monty said. She turned to look at him. “I can do it,” he reassured. “We’ll be talking to the Ark by nightfall.”

She nodded and turned back to the wall panel so she walked out of the dropship. Most of the jobs around camp consisted of food prep, making weapons, and improving the wall so there was a lot of noise outside the dropship. She headed away from the dropship towards what had become their cookfire when Murphy’s voice made her look back. Someone, she couldn’t tell who, had dropped to his knees while apparently carrying a log for the wall.

“You think the Grounders are just gonna sit around and wait for us to finish the wall?” Murphy asked. Clarke glanced over to Bellamy up at the gate. He didn’t exactly look as…tough or bossy as he had only a few days before. He didn’t look thrilled with Murphy actually. “Maybe we should let the little girl do the lifting for you, huh?” Murphy continued, gesturing to Charlotte.

The other boy said something, but his back was to Clarke and she was a few yards away, so she couldn’t hear it. Bellamy moved towards the two of them and she took a few steps closer. “—get this guy some water,” she heard him say. He looked at Charlotte and said, “Hey, you got this?” Just as she thought that he couldn’t possibly expect her to lift the log, he darted forward to intercept Charlotte and smiled at her. He hefted the log onto his shoulder and Clarke hurriedly turned away and went to the cookfire to check on the batch of bone broth from what the hunters brought back the day before. She tried not to think about Bellamy Blake’s smile.

The bone broth was bubbling away and didn’t need any attention though, so of course her thoughts went back to him and his stupid smile. She still didn’t know what to think. Bellamy Blake was her soulmate.

She didn’t really know _what_ to think about it. He was an asshole most of the time. The way he’d acted when they first landed was awful and how he’d been willing to let Jasper die…But he’d saved her at the pit and protected her from the panther. And when faced with the reality of death in Atom he’d completely changed his opinion on not only Jasper, but almost everything else. He’d changed from ‘whatever the hell we want’ to maybe being an actual leader. He’d buried Wells when he didn’t need to, and he hadn’t even liked Wells.

And he was unfairly attractive. She didn’t want to admit it and she hadn’t really had time to think about it. Or she’d actively tried to ignore how attractive he was. But when she’d seen him that second day with his hair loose and curling rather than slicked back, she’d had a brief flash of _Oh no, he’s pretty_ run through her head before he opened his mouth. His pretty face and hair did not make up for his attitude. Well, it did for some girls, she thought, as she looked over at Nicole. The girl hadn’t bothered to hide her interest in Bellamy. Yesterday morning it hadn’t bothered her, and she didn’t _want_ it to bother her, but it did. She didn’t even really like Bellamy all that much. But the thought of him with someone else did kind of make her stomach twist unpleasantly.

“Hey, Clarke,” a voice called from behind her, breaking her train of thought. She turned to see Bellamy hovering a few feet away. She hoped her proximity to the fire explained away her blush. “Jasper and Octavia need to talk to us.”

She frowned. “About what?”

“They didn’t say,” he said. “She just said that it was important.” He led her to one of the tents, but not one of the sleeping ones. She hadn’t been in it before, so she was surprised to see a table made out of scraps from the dropship. A scrap of cloth bundled around something sat in the middle of the table.

“What going on?” she asked, eyeing Jasper and Octavia warily. Jasper looked nervous and anxious while Octavia looked like she was trying to hide how worried she was.

“I took Jasper outside the wall,” Octavia said. “Not far, but outside. And we found something.” Clarke eyed the scrap of cloth with dread.

“We found this,” Jasper said and flipped the top of the cloth over to reveal two fingers the same shade as Well’s skin. She hadn’t – she didn’t know if Wells had been missing any fingers. She looked at Bellamy who met her gaze, looking a combination of confused, shocked, and sorry.

“We also found this,” Octavia said, and something clattered to the table. She looked away from Bellamy to see a yellow and black scrap of metal, twisted and bent. It took her a second to understand what she saw.

She picked it up. “This knife was made of metal from the dropship,” she said. It looked like one of the levers.

“What do you mean?” Jasper asked, voice quiet and fearful.

“Who else knows about this?” Bellamy asked Octavia.

“No one. We brought it straight here,” she said.

“Clarke?” Jasper asked quietly.

“It means the Grounders didn’t kill Wells,” she said. She’d known a handful of the kids were in the Skybox for more violent crimes, including murder. Someone within 100 feet of her had killed Wells. “It was one of us.” As she shifted the knife, something inside the curved handle shone silver against the yellow and black. **JM**. Someone here had murdered Wells and she knew who it was. She felt anger settle in her stomach.

“So there’s a murderer in the camp?” Jasper asked.

“There’s more than one murderer in this camp,” Bellamy said. “This isn’t news. We need to keep it quiet.”

_What?_ Her gaze flew to him. He looked serious. No. He couldn’t be serious. Murphy had killed Wells. He wouldn’t want it kept quiet if someone had killed Octavia. He’d hunt down whoever had done it. She clenched her jaw and moved towards the tent’s opening, but he stepped in front of her to block her way. “Get out of my way, Bellamy,” she said. He was an asshole and the universe or Zeus or whoever was clearly wrong. They couldn’t be meant for each other.

“Be smart about this,” he said quietly. “Look at what we’ve achieved. The wall, the patrols. Like it or not, thinking the Grounders killed Wells is good for us.”

“Oh, good for you, you mean,” she scoffed, anger filling her veins. “What – keep people afraid and they’ll work for you? Is that it?”

“Yeah. That’s it,” he said. “But it’s good for all of us. Fear of the Grounders is building that wall. And besides, what are you gonna do – just walk outside and ask the killer to step forward? You don’t even know whose knife that is?”

“Oh, really?” she asked. She raised the knife and held it so Bellamy could see inside the hilt. “JM. John Murphy.” He looked somewhat stunned at the sight. “The people have a right to know.” She pushed past him and stepped outside of the tent, eyes immediately looking for Murphy.

As soon as she saw him harassing one of the other boys, the anger turned to rage and the only thing she could think of was ‘Confront Murphy and get him to confess.’ She hadn’t thought anything beyond that, the rage and grief filling her taking control. She didn’t have any expectations of what would happen, of how confronting him would play out. She couldn’t think beyond confronting him.

When the phrase, “I say we float him,” was shouted out, she started to feel panic trickle into the rage and grief. That panic grew and grew when the others started chanting to float Murphy and then attacked him before dragging him out of the camp to hang him.

Bellamy looked equally panicked and uncertain of what to do, especially once Connor began chanting his name to hang Murphy. She didn’t know what to do, how to stop it. Nobody was listening to her and Bellamy seemed frozen.

“I saw you in the woods with Atom,” she said desperately as the others continued to chant. “I know you’re not a killer.” He looked up at Murphy. “Bellamy, don’t do this. Don’t do this,” she begged. He looked back at her and then started towards Murphy. She grasped at his jacket, desperate to stop him. Standing underneath Murphy, he looked at her and he didn’t look panicked anymore. “You can’t do this, Bellamy.”

This isn’t what she wanted. She had just wanted him to admit to murdering Wells. She hadn’t wanted him hung by a mob. She’d wanted him punished, not murdered. The Ark murdered enough people as punishment. That wasn’t the type of civilization they should continue. There were other ways of punishing people.

Murphy was shouting something through the gag, eyes terrified. Bellamy turned from her and stared up at Bellamy. Connor was apparently tired of waiting for Bellamy to do it and kicked the crate out from under Murphy. He fell and the crowd cheered. Clarke was horrified as Murphy kicked. His neck hadn’t snapped. He was going to suffocate if he wasn’t cut down. She shoved at Bellamy, not even sure what she was saying.

His face was filled with anger when he turned to her and said, “This is on you, Princess.” He shoved her the way she had shoved him. “You should’ve kept your mouth shut.”

Through the cheering voices she heard Finn shout. “What the hell are you doing?” Bellamy looked first, but when Clarke turned Finn was pushing his way in between Jasper and Monty, pointing up at Murphy. “Cut him down!” He turned and Clarke saw Charlotte standing there, looking utterly terrified. “Charlotte, get out of here,” Finn said before turning back to Murphy. “Cut him down!”

Connor pulled a weapon and grabbed Finn’s jacket as he tried to reach Murphy. “Get out of my way,” Finn said.

“Stop! Just stop, okay?” Charlotte shouted as she wrestled out of Octavia’s hold. “Murphy didn’t kill Wells!” Clarke turned to her, shocked and stunned. The shouting died down and Charlotte made eye contact with Clarke and said, “I did!”

_What?_ No, Charlotte couldn’t have killed Wells. Murphy did it. It was his knife. He had to have done it, right? “Oh my God,” she gasped and turned, pulling the axe from Bellamy’s pants and struck the rope wrapped around a tree. The rope flew up as Murphy landed in a heap in Finn’s arms. He groaned our shouted something unintelligible in rage.

Bellamy darted through the cluster of people, grabbed Charlotte’s hand, and took off with her. Clarke took one look back at Finn and then followed, running after them. Monty called out her name, but she ignored him. A moment later when she reached the camp’s wall, she heard footsteps behind her and she looked back in fear, but it was Finn charging after her.

She saw Bellamy duck into the tent where things had started as she ran through the gate. There was a shout behind her and as she ducked in the tent, Bellamy whirling around to look at her, Murphy yelled Bellamy’s name.

Finn ducked in just behind her. “The others are coming,” he said.

Clarke scrubbed her hands over her face. What the hell was going on? This was all her fault. She should have listened to Bellamy, but he wouldn’t have kept it quiet if someone had killed Octavia outside the walls. God, _Charlotte_ had killed Wells? Clarke was furious, but that fury was mixed with guilt over Murphy and panic. This wasn’t going to end well. 

“Bring out the girl, Bellamy!” Murphy called from outside the tent. 

“Why, Charlotte?” Bellamy asked, sounding confused and upset.

“Because I was just trying to slay my demons, like you told me,” she said.

“What the hell is she talking about?” Clarke asked, turning to face Bellamy. She’d murdered Wells because of something Bellamy said.

“She – she misunderstood me,” Bellamy said almost as if he was pleading with her. “Charlotte, that is not what I meant.”

“Bring the girl out now!” Murphy shouted outside.

“Please don’t let them hurt me,” Charlotte said, fear evident in her voice.

Bellamy turned. “If you guys have any bright ideas, speak up.” He looked at them in alarm when they didn’t say anything. But Clarke didn’t have any ideas. All of her ideas outside of medical treatment had gone catastrophically so far. “Now you stay quiet,” he accused her.

“Hey,” Finn said sharply. “Those are your boys out there.”

“This is not my fault,” Bellamy said. “If she had listened to me, those idiots would still be building the wall.”

Clarke didn’t look at him as she fought back tears. She couldn’t look at him. He didn’t seem to understand that there wasn’t any salvaging this. Murphy was going to kill Charlotte and then he was going to hunt them down. She didn’t know if he was going to kill Bellamy, but he was definitely going to kill her because she’d acted without thinking. She’d let anger and grief drive her. Murphy hadn’t killed Wells, Charlotte had. A thirteen-year-old girl had killed her best friend because her soulmate spouted some bullshit about slaying demons. They couldn’t fix this.

“You want to build a society, Princess?” Murphy shouted. Finn opened the tent flap to look outside. Clarke didn’t move. “Let’s build a society. Bring her out!”

Finn ducked back in as Charlotte said, “No! Please, Bellamy!”

He crouched down to her eye level. “Charlotte, hey, it’s gonna be okay,” he said reassuringly. “Just stay with them.” He looked at her and Finn before standing. Clarke crossed her arms as he ducked out of the tent.

Even though he was an asshole, had at the very least indirectly resulted in her best friend’s death, and hadn’t done anything to stop the mob murder, she desperately hoped that Murphy didn’t kill Bellamy.

“We need to get her out of here,” Finn said.

“Where are we supposed to go? The car? That’s not gonna work,” Clarke said. Murphy would find them and then he’d kill them.

“I got a better idea,” Finn said. “We’ll go out the back.” He moved over to the opposite side of the tent and lifted it. “Come on.”

Charlotte ducked under it and Clarke followed. Finn led them to a gap in the wall. In the back of her mind she made a note that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible. Octavia screamed out, “No, you son of a bitch!”

_Bellamy_.

“Charlotte!” Murphy shouted. “Charlotte, I know you can hear me! And when I find you, you’re gonna pay!”

Finn led them through the woods and after fifteen minutes or so Clarke said, “At least tell me you have a plan and we’re not just wandering aimlessly through the woods.”

“I have a plan,” he said.

She felt a hand slip into her own and she jerked back away from Charlotte. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “Just because we saved you doesn’t mean your forgiven. Got it?” She would never forgive Charlotte for this.

“Clarke,” Finn said. She turned to look at him.

“What?”

“She’s just a kid,” he said.

“She’s a killer. You killed someone, Charlotte. Ended his life. Did you think about that for even a second?” Charlotte looked down. “Look at me! You can’t just kill someone to make yourself feel better.” Charlotte was crying now, and Clarke didn’t know how to feel about it. She looked back at Finn, who looked disappointed in her.

Murphy’s voice rang out, calling for Charlotte. “Clarke and Finn can’t save you!”

“We should run,” she said as Murphy continued to shout.

“Yeah, that’s one way to go,” Finn said. “I like my plan better.” He leaned down and pulled a hatch up. “Get in.” Charlotte climbed down first, and Clarke followed. All she could see before Finn closed the hatch behind himself was metal walls. They were plunged into darkness and she reached in her pack for a flashlight.

It was a bunker of some kind. There were shelves built into the walls with tubs and containers on them. As she stepped further into the space, Finn turned another light on. There was a bunkbed on one wall and a couch on the other. There was a table and a kitchenette past the couch.

“Finn, what is this?” she asked.

“For now, it’s home,” he said. “We should see if there are any lights.”

Clarke raised her flashlight and aimed it at the back of the bunker. There was a door on the far wall and more racks of shelves with containers. She headed for the closest rack and pulled a container down. Once she popped the lid off, she saw a bunch of candles. If things weren’t so tense, she might have had the time to marvel at them. Instead, she started pulling them out. Hopefully there was a lighter or matches or something in there to actually light them. Some of the candles were just plain candles, but some of them were jarred. She peered at one of the jars of wax. It had a label on it, some sort of decorative skull design and said ‘Midnight Boo Citrus.”

What kind of candles were these?

Buried under the candles and some empty jars at the bottom of the tub she found a few lighters, though upon further inspection it looked like the lighter fluid inside them had dried up over the last 97 years. Luckily, whoever had stocked the bunker had thought of that too and she found matches. Lots of matches. Nine boxes of 300 matches. They were broken into sets of three and wrapped in some sort of plastic that hadn’t aged well. But the boxes _looked_ okay. She broke the packaging open and opened the box to poke at the matches. They looked okay too. But she had no idea how to _use_ a match. She looked at the box and it had instructions though. She pulled one of the matches out and thought about testing it, but she brought the box and two of the jarred candles over to the kitchen counter. She pulled the lid off the first one, the weird skull themed one. It had a faint odor, but it had been 97 years. She struck the match against the textured side of the box like the instructions said and fire burst into life.

She stared at it for a second, annoyed at how easy that was compared to how much trouble it took to start a fire at the camp. Shaking her head, she started to light the candles.

“Are you tired?” she heard Finn ask. She looked up to see Finn talking to Charlotte. “You should lay down.”

“I’m fine,” Charlotte said quietly.

Once Clarke lit a few candles she started distributing them around the space. Finn took two of them and put them on the shelf of the bunkbed. “You should sleep,” Finn said. “You’re having, what is it, an adrenaline crash?” he said, looking back at Clarke. She didn’t look at him. Charlotte murmured something, but Finn ushered her over to the bed.

She moved to take a few candles over to the table where she realized something was there. There were a few photos on the table. One was propped up and she picked it up to look at. It was a family, or what she assumed was a family. Two kids, two parents on what looked like a snow-covered mountain. She was pretty sure they were on skis. This was supposed to be a refuge, a safe space to ride out the radiation. They’d obviously prepared the bunker for their family. She looked around, taking in the toys on the shelf of the bottom bunk. They’d planned on being safe here, but they’d never made it.

She lit the last candle as Finn finished tucking Charlotte into bed. “I can’t believe you kept this place quiet,” she said quietly. She was pretty sure it was the Art Supply Store, so he’d told _her_ about it that morning, but she didn’t know how long he’d known about it. She’d only found candles and matches, but she was sure there was other stuff here they could use back at the camp.

“Oh come on, Clarke,” Finn said in a hushed tone. “What would be the point of telling anyone?”

“Some of this stuff is useful,” she said. Matches. They had matches now. They had a lot of matches now.

“Like what? There’s no weapons. All the food expired, like, 90 years ago.”

“Yeah, but we could repurpose. Share with the group.” There had to be things _other_ than matches and candles here. And if it was just those, then those were useful. 

“You can share this with the group if you’d like,” he said, holding out a jar. It was a jar of pencils. She took it from him and pulled one out. Green. Not the green of outside right now, but maybe the green of spring. He turned towards the couch and asked, “What’d you find?” as he sat down.

“Well,” she said, sitting next to him. She showed him the photo. “Looks like they never made it here.”

“No. I figure the bombs took them by surprise. All this preparation. What a waste,” he said.

She looked around the bunker. “I don’t know. Maybe they were lucky.” She looked back at the photo of the happy family. “They couldn’t have lived more than a few years down here, then when they ran out of food or lost their minds, they would’ve opened the doors and been dead within a few days. Back then, maybe sooner.” She looked over at Charlotte. “What are we gonna do about her? If I hadn’t confronted Murphy, none of this would’ve happened.”

“How could you know it’d go down like that?”

“Bellamy knew.” Or did he know it was Charlotte the whole time? No. He’d been too surprised and distraught by her confession. “We think the Grounders are a threat. Now we’re killing each other. There have to be consequences.”

“We can’t just let them hang people.”

They exchanged a glance. “No.”

“Well, hopefully we figure it out before Murphy kills us for helping her,” Finn said. “He’s not the forgive and forget type.”

She didn’t know what woke her. She didn’t even know she’d fallen asleep. But she opened her eyes and realized her head was resting against Finn’s shoulder. She cautiously glanced up to see he was still asleep. She smiled and sat forward when she saw Charlotte’s bed on the other wall.

Charlotte’s empty bed.

“Finn. Finn, wake up,” she said, jostling him. She moved over to Charlotte’s bed and looked back at him. Under other circumstances, his half-asleep expression would be cute. “She’s gone.”

He stood and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s go.” She grabbed her own jacket, not noticing that the two headed deer fell out of it.

Once they were up and out of the bunker, she looked around, but couldn’t see Charlotte. She had no idea how much of a lead Charlotte had and it was drizzling. At least that would help with tracking. “Which way?” she asked Finn.

“This way,” he said, pointing to a boot print in the mud. They ran through the woods, Finn lighting the way with his flashlight. After a few minutes of following Charlotte’s tracks, he stopped and knelt down. There were larger boot prints mixed in with Charlotte’s. “Someone else was here!”

“No! Murphy!”

“Murphy has her,” Clarke said, dread sitting low in her stomach. They sprinted in the direction of Charlotte’s voice.

She heard Murphy shout out, “Bellamy!” a moment later.

As she began to see torchlight through the trees, she heard Bellamy say, “– and take a few of you with me.”

She burst through the trees and called out, “Stop!” before she took in what was going on. Bellamy and Charlotte were backed up against the edge of a cliff and Murphy had four of the delinquents with him. She moved to stand in between Murphy and Bellamy, facing Murphy. “This has gone too far. Just calm down, we’ll talk about this.”

Murphy’s gaze flicked past her and in one swift move, grabbed and twisted her so she was held against him and his knife was at her throat. Finn tried to step towards them, but Murphy dragged her back.

“I’m sick of listening to you talk,” he hissed in her ear.

“Let her go,” Finn said.

“I will slit her throat,” Murphy snarled, and Clarke made desperate eye contact with Bellamy. He looked panicked and his eyes darted between her own and the blade at her throat. She didn’t want to die in front of him. She didn’t want _him_ to die in front of her.

“No, please,” Charlotte said. “Please don’t hurt her.” Bellamy had an arm out in front of Charlotte, but his eyes didn’t move from Clarke. Her pulse hammered in her ears.

“Don’t hurt her?” Murphy asked. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. You come with me right now, I will let her go.”

Clarke broke eye contact with Bellamy and looked at Charlotte. The other girl looked hesitant, but like she was considering it. “Don’t do it, Charlotte,” she said. Charlotte tried to take a step forward, but Bellamy held her back with his arm. “Don’t do it, Charlotte!” she repeated.

Bellamy grabbed at Charlotte, trying to keep her away from Murphy and the cliff’s edge at the same time. She hit at him, shrieking, “No! No, I have to!”

“Stop!” Bellamy said and let her go when she stilled, only to turn to Murphy. “Murphy, this is not happening.”

“I can’t let any of you get hurt anymore,” Charlotte said sadly. Bellamy looked back at her and then back to Clarke. “Not because of me. Not after what I did.” Charlotte turned and Clarke wrenched herself from Murphy’s grasp, shouting Charlotte’s name.

Bellamy tried to reach for her, but he had been watching Clarke, not Charlotte, and he was too late. Charlotte was gone. Clarke collapsed to her knees next to Bellamy on the mossy edge of the cliff, staring down at the fog and mist as the rain picked up. No. No. Charlotte jumped. Why had she jumped?

Bellamy shifted beside her, looking back. “Bellamy,” Murphy said hesitantly. Bellamy stood, took a step, and then roared. She turned just in time to see Bellamy tackle Murphy to the ground. He started pummeling Murphy as Finn and Murphy’s lackeys just stood there.

“Bellamy, stop! You’ll kill him!” she shouted as she scrambled to her feet.

Finn pulled Bellamy away and Bellamy shouted, “Get off me! He deserves to die!”

She stepped into Bellamy’s space, reaching for his bicep. “No! We don’t decide who lives and dies. Not down here!” she said, fighting back tears. They couldn’t be like the Ark. They couldn’t.

Bellamy looked past her to Murphy on the ground, clearly fighting tears of his own. “So help me God, if you say the people have a right to decide—”

“No, no I was wrong before, okay? You were right,” she said, voice cracking. He looked surprised at her admission. “Sometimes it’s dangerous to tell people the truth. But if we’re gonna survive down here, we can’t just live by whatever the hell we want.” He rolled his eyes and took a half step back, but not far enough to pull her hand from his arm. “We need rules.”

“And who makes those rules, huh? You?”

She stepped closer, back into his space. “For now, _we_ make the rules, okay?”

He looked frustrated and she didn’t know if it was with what she was saying or the situation. “So, what, then? We just take him back and pretend like it never happened?”

“No!” She paused and looked back at Murphy. He was still flat on the ground and he was staring at them. She looked back at Bellamy. “We banish him.”

Bellamy paused and looked to Finn before he hauled Murphy up. When he moved to the cliff’s edge she stepped forward. Murphy tried to fight him, but Bellamy was stronger. “Bellamy—” she started to say.

“If I ever catch you near camp, we’ll be back here,” Bellamy said. “Understand?” Murphy nodded and Bellamy pushed him away from the edge, sending him sprawling to the ground. “As for the four of you,” Bellamy said to the others. “You can come back and follow me, or go off with him to die. Your choice.” He stalked off into the woods. Clarke only hesitated for half a second, hurrying after him and cutting off the other four as they followed suit.

When they reached camp, Octavia was the first to reach them, running to Bellamy’s side. “What happened? Are you okay? Where’s Charlotte? Where’s Murphy?”

“I’m fine,” Bellamy said, brushing her off.

“We need to gather everyone. To explain what happened,” Clarke said. “Both today and in the last couple of hours.”

“Okay,” Octavia said slowly. “Are you two okay?”

“Murphy tried to slit her throat,” Bellamy said. “And Charlotte jumped off a cliff – so no.”

“Charlotte—”

“Just help gather everyone,” Clarke said wearily, cutting Octavia off. “We’ll explain everything then.” She had no idea _how_ they were going to explain it. Or if she and Bellamy were even on the same page when it came to explaining it. Maybe they should have used the walk back to prepare.

But maybe she could’ve thought before accusing Murphy too. Maybe she could’ve stayed with Wells instead of gong to check on Jasper.

Bellamy headed to the large fire in front of the dropship and she followed after him. “What do we say?” he murmured. “This can’t happen again.”

“What did you actually tell her?” she asked, equally quiet.

“She had nightmares, about Jaha,” Bellamy said. “I did tell her to slay her demons, but…I didn’t think she’d kill Wells. I meant—”

“I know,” Clarke said, cutting him off. “I know.”

Slowly, the majority of the camp started to gather around the fire. Bellamy exchanged a glance with her before speaking. “Today was unacceptable.” The teenagers around them began to murmur and a few Clarke recognized as Murphy’s friends looked suspicious.

“I made a mistake,” she said. “Octavia and Jasper found Murphy’s knife outside with Wells’s…” She trailed off. “They found evidence that someone in here killed Wells. I didn’t stop to think before I confronted him.”

“But _you’re_ the ones who turned into a mob,” Bellamy said. “You’re the ones who escalated the situation and almost killed him.”

“That can’t happen again,” Clarke said. “’Whatever the hell we want’ doesn’t work.”

“Where’s Murphy?” someone shouted from the back.

“Murphy was going to kill Charlotte,” Bellamy said. “He threatened Clarke to get Charlotte to go with him.”

Somewhere it sounded like someone said, “She would’ve deserved it.”

“Charlotte killed herself to prevent Clarke, to prevent more people from being hurt,” Bellamy said.

Clarke kept her eyes trained on the fire instead of out at the others. “We can’t be like the Ark. We can’t choose who lives and who dies. We can’t kill each other or, or beat each other up anymore. If you have issues with someone, come talk to Bellamy.”

“Or Clarke,” Bellamy said.

“I made a mistake, but we all could have stopped what happened. Murphy didn’t have to try and kill Charlotte.”

“Or you,” Bellamy added. She glanced over at him, but he was staring at all the others. Past Bellamy, Octavia was staring at her brother with a narrowed gaze. Clarke looked away, but the faces looking back at her from around the fire weren’t any better. They were staring at her and at Bellamy, expressions ranging from suspicious to angry to fearful.

“We’ve already lost enough lives here,” Clarke said. “Caleb and Ross died before they could touch the ground. Atom died because of the ground. Charlotte killed Wells because of Jaha. Murphy almost died and Charlotte did. We have to do better than the Ark. We have to _be_ better than the people on the Ark. So that’s why we’ve decided to banish Murphy from camp,” she said.

“Anybody got a problem with that?” Bellamy asked.

The group broke up, teenagers drifting away from the fire. She and Bellamy exchanged a glance before she followed after Monty. Once inside the dropship, she could tell he’d been hard at work with the wristbands while they were gone. She, Octavia, Jasper, and Finn gathered around him. “Will we be able to talk to them?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “More like Morse code.” He looked back to Jasper. “You wanna do the honors?” Jasper stepped forward and took the wire from Monty. “That port right there.” Jasper carefully plugged it into the wristband. It sparked brightly and they all jerked back, but Jasper yelped.

“What happened?” she asked.

“It didn’t work,” Monty said softly. He swallowed heavily. “I think we fried all the wristbands.” He looked back at her. She looked at Finn, who stormed out. She waited a second before following him.

He stormed out of the camp and all the way to the bunker. Once down there and she was climbing down the ladder, she heard a crash. She turned and he flipped the other low table over, scattering colored pencils across the floor. “Finn!” she said, stunned at the display of anger. He flipped the dining table. “Finn, stop it! Calm down!” He turned and she grabbed at his jacket to hold him in place.

“We’re dead to them! Don’t you get that?” he shouted at her. She didn’t understand why he was so mad.

“No, there’s still hope!”

“Even you don’t believe that. It’s over, Clarke. They’re gonna die up there, and we’re alone.”

“We’re not alone!” she shouted. “You’re not alone!” She framed his face with her hands. “You’re not alone.”

He surged forward and kissed her, and she kissed him back, but when he started to pull off his jacket, she grabbed his arms. “Clarke,” he murmured against her lips and instead ran a hand up the back of her shirt.

She pulled back from him slightly and he looked at her, confused. “Finn,” she said. “I don’t—” It wasn’t Bellamy exactly that was making her pause. It was Bellamy _and_ Finn and she didn’t feel like this was cheating on Bellamy, but there was that stupid pomegranate. If she didn’t know about it, then she probably wouldn’t stop Finn. There was also the virginity factor, which didn’t really mean anything to her, but it was still a factor.

“What—sorry,” he said, stepping back. “God – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“No,” she said, reaching for him. “It’s okay. I just don’t want to have sex.”

“I—okay,” he said. He still looked flustered. “Are you – did I—”

She smiled. “Finn. I just don’t want to have sex. I’m fine with making out, but we should get back to the camp tonight.”

Finn still seemed flustered and tugged his jacket back fully on. “I—yeah. Let’s go. We should blow out the candles.”

She frowned a little, but followed his lead to blow out the candles. She didn’t exactly know how she felt about Finn and Bellamy, but she wouldn’t have minded more kissing. Though, as they headed back to camp, maybe it wasn’t fair to either of them until she sorted out her own feelings. And it wasn’t cheating since she wasn’t with Bellamy and, as far as she knew, he didn’t know they were soulmates. And it didn’t _have_ to mean anything. Today had made things more confusing, so maybe it was a good thing that they hadn’t continued to kiss.

She looked up at the stars and moon and saw a tiny speck of light travelling faster than the Ark. “Hey, a meteor.”

Finn glanced up at the sky. “A shooting star. People used to wish on those.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next...Raven


	6. Chapter 6

Finn was still flustered and awkward when they got back to camp, and he disappeared almost immediately once they were within the walls. She shook her head at his retreating back and went to go find Monty. He was in the dropship staring at the setup he’d created with the dropship’s mainframe.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked.

“I’m really sorry, Clarke. I thought this would work,” he said.

“It’s okay. I still have hope we can figure this out.” All their vitals dropping at once without any warning signs might look odd to someone and there were the soulmarks too. Maybe the Council would figure it out on their own. But she also knew who was on the Council. Maybe they wouldn’t figure it out.

“How’s Finn?” Monty asked.

“He’s angry. But he’s here,” Clarke said, shrugging. “How did everyone react today after…we left?”

“Murphy went looking after he half knocked Bellamy out,” Monty said. Clarke frowned. He might have a concussion from that, but she’d been staring into his eyes for long enough while Murphy had a blade to her throat earlier to know his pupillary response was fine. “It got kind of ugly for a second after Bellamy left, but Miller took over.” Monty frowned.

“What?” she asked.

“You knew him on the Ark, right? He’s not _bad_ or anything, is he? Because I keep seeing him in the corner of my eye like he’s following me or something.”

Clarke had half an idea of what that was, but she wasn’t sure if it was because Miller had a crush. And she certainly wasn’t going to out Miller. “I mean, no,” she said instead. “He was busted for stealing. I don’t know what specifically cause I was already in solitary. I heard the guards outside talking about it when they did patrols.”

“Okay,” Monty said. “Things were weird today. A lot of people seemed ashamed. A lot of people seemed scared.” He paused. “Are _you_ okay? Never mind, that’s a bad question.”

Clarke sighed. “I haven’t been okay for a year, Monty. Today really didn’t help. Thanks, though, for asking.”

She wandered out of the dropship, half idly looking for Octavia or Jasper and half trying to figure out where she was going to sleep. She didn’t really want to be around these people right now. Now with how easily they’d gotten out of control. Honestly, she didn’t even know if she’d be able to sleep, or sleep without seeing Charlotte vanish over the cliff.

Jesus. This wasn’t how she’d thought the day was going to go.

She’d been thinking about Bellamy only hours before. She’d been thinking that maybe she wanted to see how things would work. Then he’d made her angry and then he’d made her even angrier when he didn’t stop things and with the whole ‘slay your demons’ bullshit. But he’d looked terrified when Murphy held the knife to her throat. He tried to protect Charlotte, to save her. But he’d been furious with Murphy and would’ve killed him if Finn hadn’t pulled him off.

Finn had been furious too, though. And though their anger came from different places, Finn’s had scared her more than Bellamy’s despite how Bellamy’s involved attempted murder. She knew Bellamy had that rage inside of him. Finn had never shown anger like that before. She’d only known him for ten days, but there was plenty to get angry about. And his anger had been destructive in a different type of violence. She didn’t think he would’ve hit her, but he’d flipped three tables.

It wasn’t fair to compare the two. She’d only started to consider Bellamy differently when Octavia saw her soulmark. She’d noticed that Bellamy was hot before that, but he was infuriating. She definitely hadn’t thought about him beyond ‘smug asshole.’ Well, until Atom. And he’d been so gentle with her when he told her about Wells and he didn’t have to. And he’d buried Wells when he didn’t have to either.

Shit. Maybe she had been thinking of Bellamy before Octavia saw her soulmark.

She hadn’t actually found anywhere to sleep when the shouting started. She was dozing in a jumpseat in front of one of the fires, but it wasn’t like it had been an intentional choice. She’d sat to think and had found herself getting drowsy. There’d been some pretty significant adrenaline spikes through the day, and she’d slept one of the crashes off, but not for long enough.

“What is that?” someone nearby asked.

Clarke opened her eyes and looked around to see a few of the kids still awake, pointing up. There was a boom-crack noise and she looked up too. There was some sort of flaming object falling from the sky. What was that? It was too big to be a meteor that broke atmosphere, right? But she’d seen a meteor earlier.

“Bellamy!” Octavia shouted from nearby. “Get out here!” Clarke stood and made her way over to Octavia. “What do you think it is?” she asked Clarke.

“I think it’s from the Ark. It’s too big to be anything else,” Clarke said. Bellamy walked out of his tent then, not wearing a shirt and Clarke sucked in a quiet gasp. Why? Why wasn’t he wearing a shirt? It was too cold to not wear – wait. Was someone in there _with_ him?

Octavia glanced at her brother and rolled her eyes. “There,” she said, pointing up at the sky just as a parachute deployed from the object.

“They can help us,” one of the boys said behind them. “Now we can kick some Grounder ass.”

Clarke turned to see others joining, most in some state of undress. She tried not to be pleased with the fact that Nicole, Roma, _and_ Bree all walked up from the opposite direction as Bellamy’s tent. She and Bellamy weren’t together, and she might’ve slept with Finn. Bellamy could sleep with people even if the thought did kind of make her want to throw up. She shouldn’t be happy about the three girls not being in his tent.

As she looked back up at the sky, she tried not to glance at Bellamy and failed. The firelight flickered over his abs and chest, but he looked worried when she got to his face. Why was he so worried about this? Why was he so hell bent against getting help from the Ark?

“Please tell me they brought down some shampoo,” Roma said, and Clarke rolled her eyes. Sure, that was exactly the kind of supplies they needed.

“It’s too small to be a dropship,” Finn said behind her and she stiffened. “I’m thinking a cargo pod. Maybe there’s weapons.”

“No. They wouldn’t arm a bunch of juvenile delinquents,” Clarke said, which made Octavia snort as Finn came to stand next to them. He, at least, was fully clothed. “It’s probably nutrition packs, medical supplies.” _Please let there be real alcohol instead of Monty’s moonshine_. “There’d be a radio.”

“We can talk to the Ark,” Finn said slowly.

“That is, if the radio isn’t fried in the landing,” Clarke pointed out.

“How likely is that?” Octavia asked. Clarke just shrugged. She honestly had no idea. Monty might know.

“We’re not alone down here anymore,” Finn said, and Clarke thought back to the bunker.

“Where’d it land?” Miller asked. “Other than somewhere over there.”

“Where’s the map?” Clarke asked. “I mean, we know the basic trajectory so we could figure it out.”

“It’s in the tent with the table,” Octavia said. She smacked her brother’s arm. “Go put a shirt on. You’re making me cold just looking at you.”

“You’re wearing a tank top,” Bellamy said dryly, but he headed back to his tent. Clarke tried not to stare at him as he went. Why was he so unfairly attractive?

Octavia elbowed her and rolled her eyes. “You’re gross.”

“Shut up,” Clarke said. “We need to figure out where it landed. God, I hope there’s actual bandages in there.”

“You don’t like boiling dirty rags?” Miller asked.

Bellamy came back out of his tent, pulling his jacket on. “What are you all standing around for?” he asked before heading into the other tent.

“You’re still gross,” Octavia said as she followed after her brother.

Clarke rolled her eyes at Octavia’s back. She turned to Miller. “You good to hold down the camp when we go get it?” she asked.

He raised a brow at her. “You’re both going to go?”

She shrugged. “Probably.” She turned towards the tent. “Hopefully there’s a lot of supplies.”

Inside the tent, Jones was unrolling the map. Octavia was standing next to him and winked at Clarke. Finn made some sort of noise behind her, which made her want to wince. Still, she stood next to Bellamy and looked down at the map.

“If it cleared the ridge, it’s probably by the lake,” Jones said.

“We should get moving,” Octavia said. “Everyone’s ready.”

“Miller can stay and watch the camp,” Clarke said. “He said he was good to do it.”

“No one’s going anywhere,” Bellamy said. Clarke looked at him, surprised. “Not while it’s dark. It isn’t safe.” Well, that was actually a pretty good point.

“We need those supplies,” Finn said. “What if the Grounders get there first?”

“You want the Grounders to pick us off in the dark?” Bellamy asked. “We’ll head out at first light. Pass the word.”

“And if the Grounders get there first?” Finn asked.

“He’s right, Finn,” Clarke said. “Jones, could you go let the others know?”

“Sure,” he said and glanced between Finn and Bellamy before hurrying out of the tent.

“Everyone for a hundred miles saw this thing come down,” Octavia said, staring at her brother. “Bell, we should go now.”

“I said we wait until sunrise,” he said and looked to Clarke.

“Octavia, he’s right. We don’t know the terrain well. The Grounders do. And if they get there first, we just have to hope they don’t know what a radio is. I know where other supplies are. No food, but other things, like matches. So many matches.”

“Clarke,” Finn said. “You can’t be serious. What about the next time someone goes ballistic?”

“Finn, it’s Bellamy and Octavia, not the whole camp. We need the blankets and whatever else may be useful down there. It’s not just art supplies.”

“What are you talking about?” Octavia asked.

“Finn found an emergency bunker. The family that outfitted it never made it there. There’s a lot of storage containers. I only went through the one with candles and matches. That alone is worth it.”

“We can deal with that tomorrow, too,” Bellamy said. “We’re going at sunrise.” He pushed past his sister.

“I can’t believe you told them,” Finn said and stomped after Bellamy.

“You seriously agree with him,” Octavia said.

“Yes. We need what’s in there, but it’s dangerous at night.”

“Something’s up with him,” Octavia said. “Anything about the Ark makes him weird.”

Clarke didn’t know what to say. But then she remembered how Bellamy’s guard’s jacket had been stretching over his biceps only moments before. His _guard’s_ jacket. “Octavia, how did Bellamy get on the dropship? How did he sneak on a secret dropship to Earth?”

Octavia frowned. “He snuck on,” she said. “That’s it.” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “What’s up with you and Finn? You ran out of the dropship after him. How’d you find out about the bunker?”

“We hid there with Charlotte,” Clarke said. “He was furious when he left the dropship. I followed him there, to the bunker. I tried to calm him down. And then he kissed me. And he definitely wanted to have sex.”

“Did you have sex?” Octavia asked.

Clarke felt her cheeks heat. “No! I don’t – we were gone for, like, half an hour. That’d be pretty sad sex.”

Octavia shrugged. “Not that I’d know.”

“Me neither,” Clarke said. “I mean, he wanted to. I told him I didn’t, and he got weird.”

“Maybe you freaked him out,” Octavia said. “This mean you’re gonna be weird with my brother, though? Because you hurt him and I’m gonna hurt you.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Clarke admitted. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” She didn’t know what she felt. She liked both of them, but she didn’t know if she was only considering Bellamy because he was her soulmate. But was that necessarily a bad thing?

“I kissed Jasper,” Octavia said. “I don’t really know what I’m doing either.” She sighed. “I’m gonna go find Bell.”

Octavia walked out, leaving Clarke alone in the tent. She scrubbed her hands over her face. She was exhausted. If they were going to leave at sunrise – which was in three hours when she checked her watch – she definitely needed to get some sleep. She rolled the map back up, put it away, and headed out of the tent. The question was, where was she going to sleep now?

She would up settling back into her seat in front of the fire and hoped that she could get some sleep. After what felt like absolutely no time, someone called her name and shook her shoulder. “What?” she asked blearily. It couldn’t possibly be morning yet.

“Bellamy’s gone,” Finn said. “I went to go convince him we should go now, but he’s already gone. His tent’s empty and his pack’s missing. He’s heading for the pod.”

“Are you sure he’s not with Octavia?” Clarke asked through a yawn.

“I can’t find her either. I think she went after him. He wants the supplies.”

“He wants the radio,” Clarke said, standing. She should’ve known he’d go while they were sleeping. She grabbed her pack and made her way to the weapons table to pick up a knife. “I should’ve known he’d do this.”

“Miller’s in charge!” she shouted on her way out. 

“How were you supposed to know?” Finn asked, following her to the gates.

“He’s spent every minute making sure no one talks to the Ark.” Whatever he’d done to get on the dropship, it was haunting him. She was beginning to dread finding out what it was. “I let myself get distracted.” Distracted by his stupid abs and his stupid pecs and his stupid shoulders and his stupid ass and his stupid _face_.

They headed for the lake, but Bellamy hadn’t left much of a trail to follow. After about an hour of searching once they’d reached the lake, she asked, “Should we split up?”

“Yeah, you go that way,” Finn said, pointing. “I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

She split off from Finn and only a few moments later saw the pod. It was bigger than she’d expected, settled in a small clearing. Miraculously, it didn’t seem to have crashed through any trees. She raced for it and found the hatch quickly. When she flung it open, she was focused on the radio.

The contents of the pod stunned her, and she pulled back with a gasp. A girl. There was a girl in the pod. The girl was young, and blood trailed down her face, some dry, but most wet. The girl looked just as surprised to see Clarke.

“Oh my God,” Clarke gasped out.

“Hi,” the other girl said warily. Then, “I made it?” in a more surprised tone.

Clarke nodded, smiling brightly. “Yeah, you did.”

The other girl started shucking her space suit quickly in the cramped space and Clarke backed out of the hatch to give her some more room. Her first steps on the ground with accompanied by a wide smile and an awestruck expression. She held her arms out and tilted her head back to gaze up at the sky. She started stepping in a slow circle. “I dreamed it would smell like this.” She came to a stop facing Clarke. “Is this rain?”

“Welcome home,” Clarke said. There was a noise from the woods, but when she looked, it was just Finn.

“Raven!” he called and ran towards them.

Clarke barely had time to think _They know each other_ before Raven was running towards him.

“I knew you couldn’t be dead,” Raven said as she held Finn’s face gently.

What exactly was going on?

Finn dragged his gaze away from Raven to briefly look at Clarke. “You’re bleeding,” he said when he looked back at Raven.

“I don’t care,” Raven said and then leaned in to kiss Finn. He didn’t do anything to stop it and, in fact, kissed her back.

_What the fuck?_

She felt something twist in her stomach. That wasn’t a first kiss. That was a ‘we’re in a relationship’ kiss. He’d kissed _her_ only hours ago and had been fully intending to _sleep_ with her. He’d been flirting with her since they got down here. All while he had someone on the Ark that cared about him enough to come down in a pod. His anger the night before suddenly made a lot more sense.

While this didn’t clear up her feelings about Bellamy, it certainly cleared up her feelings about Finn. He had been fully intending to cheat on his girlfriend with her. Finn finally pulled back from the kiss and looked at her, uncertainty on his face. Clarke just felt angry. Angry and hurt.

“How did you get here?” he asked Raven.

“You know that big scrap hold, the on one K deck?” Raven asked, tone soft.

Clarke turned for the pod as Raven and Finn continued to talk. She needed to find the radio. She didn’t exactly know what she was looking for, but the tangled mess of wires clearly not plugged into anything was a bad sign. Had Bellamy really ripped the radio out and left an unconscious, bleeding girl alone? There was no way he could’ve pulled it out while she was conscious. He had to be terrified of something on the Ark.

She ducked back under the hatch to see Raven sitting on a rock and Finn walking towards her, guilt evident on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” she said flatly, walking past him.

“We’ve known each other our whole lives,” he said, walking backwards, presumably so Raven couldn’t see his face.

“Raven,” she said louder, and he looked briefly panicked. “You had a radio when you came down, right? Because there isn’t one in there now.”

“What?” Finn asked. “He took the radio and left her? We need to find him.”

“I’ll go find him. You stay here until she’s okay.”

“Clarke, you can’t go out there alone!”

“Clarke?” Raven asked, standing. “This is all because of your mom.”

“My mom?”

“This was all her plan,” Raven said. “We were trying to come down here together. If we waited – oh my God. We couldn’t wait because the Council was voting whether to kill 300 people to save air.”

“When?” she asked, desperately hoping Bellamy hadn’t damaged the radio.

“Today. The radio’s missing? We have to find it.”

Clarke took off running. _Goddammit Bellamy_.

He wasn’t that hard to find, walking through the trees like everything was normal. He didn’t know that 300 lives were at risk, after all. “Hey!” she called out to him. He looked back and then continued walking as she ran to catch up. “Where is it?” she asked, darting in front of him.

“Hey, Princess, you taking a walk in the woods?” he asked sarcastically as he pushed past her.

“They’re getting ready to kill 300 people up there,” she said, and his expression faltered. “To save oxygen. And I can guarantee you that it won’t be Council members or people from Alpha. It’ll be people from the other stations that the Council deems expendable.”

“Bellamy,” Finn said, jogging over, Raven not far behind. He shoved Bellamy, sending him stumbling back. “Where’s the radio?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bellamy said, shoving Finn back.

“Bellamy Blake?” Raven asked. “They’re looking everywhere for you.”

“Shut up,” Bellamy snapped at her.

Why were they looking for him on the Ark? What did he do? “Looking for him why?” she asked.

“He shot Chancellor Jaha,” Raven said.

What? He’d shot – he had the gun when they came down. She hadn’t questioned it at all. “That’s why you took the wristbands,” she said, putting the pieces together. He looked wary, though like he was trying to act blasé about it. “You needed everyone to think we’re dead.” But why had he shot Jaha? Anger? Revenge?

“And all that ‘whatever the hell we want’ – you just care about saving your own skin,” Finn said.

 _There’s more than one murderer in this camp_. He’d been talking about _himself_. But why did he do it and where’d he get the gun and uniform?

Bellamy scowled and turned to walk away. “Hey!” Raven said, following after him. “Shooter, where’s my radio?”

“Get out of my way.”

“Where is it?”

“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” Bellamy said, and Clarke sucked in a breath.

“Really?” Raven smirked. “Well I’m right here.” Bellamy surged, grabbing Raven’s jacket and hauling her against a tree. Clarke and Finn rushed forward, but Raven pulled a knife and aimed it at Bellamy’s face. “Where’s my radio?”

“Okay, stop it,” Clarke said, eyes on the blade. Bellamy let Raven go and stalked off.

“Jaha deserved to die,” he said. “You all know that.”

“Yeah, he’s not my favorite person either,” Raven said, causing Bellamy to turn. “But he isn’t dead.”

“What?” Bellamy asked in surprise. Clarke stared at Raven. Jaha wasn’t dead? That might change things.

“You’re a lousy shot,” Raven said.

“Bellamy,” Clarke said, moving to him. “Yesterday you said there was more than one murderer in the camp – but you’re not. He’s not dead.”

“What murderer?” Raven asked.

“You always did what you had to protect Octavia,” Clarke said quietly. “You shot him to come down and protect Octavia. _That’s_ who you are. You protect people, Bellamy. You tried to protect Charlotte.” He swallowed heavily and she reached for his hand, grasping it tightly. “I need your help to protect 300 people on the Ark. Where’s the radio?”

“It’s too late,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Raven asked.

Bellamy looked away. He licked his lips, took a breath, and said, “I threw it in the river.”

“You did what?” Raven demanded, storming over. She pushed Clarke out of the way and Clarke stumbled, but kept hold of Bellamy’s hand. It felt…nice to hold his hand. And he didn’t seem like he wanted to let go. He hadn’t pulled his out anyways.

“Do you know where you threw it?” Clarke asked. “Did you throw it _in_ the water?”

“I know where it was. I just don’t know if it’s still there,” he said.

“Show me,” Raven said. “If you broke it, I’m going to kill you.”

“Okay,” Clarke said. “We’ve had a really shitty 24 hours. I watched a thirteen-year-old jump off a cliff last night because I accused the wrong person of murdering my best friend. Nobody’s murdering anyone else.”

“What the hell’s been going on down here?” Raven asked.

Bellamy turned and his hand pulled free of hers, but she could’ve sworn he squeezed it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upon rewatching the last episode to write it, Bellamy's line, "There's more than one murderer in this camp," struck me. Because the presumption is that other kids are murderers -- Dax at the very least -- but I really got the feeling he was talking about himself.


	7. Chapter 7

Bellamy led them to the edge of a river. It was wide, but shallow and didn’t look like it had a strong current. The radio shouldn’t have moved far.

“I was here,” he said, stopping on the bank. “And I tossed it that way,” he added, pointing.

“Okay,” Clarke said. “Let’s start looking.”

“Should we get the others?” Finn asked. “More people to help look?”

“If you want to,” she said and dropped her pack. “She waded out into the water, scanning the riverbed. “Hey, is this the river the hunters found?” she called back to Bellamy.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously. “But way downstream it picks up.”

Someone splashed into the water and she looked back to see Finn. As he reached her, he said, “I should’ve told you about her,” and Clarke fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said and stepped forward to continue down the river.

“I didn’t think I’d see her again,” Finn said, sounding slightly desperate.

Well that wasn’t a good excuse. He’d clearly _hoped_ he’d see her again. “But you wouldn’t take off your wristband,” she said, and his face fell. “You had hope. It’s okay. I get it. I was around. Passably cute. And now it’s over.”

There was another splash in the water and Raven yelped. “Jesus! This is freezing!”

Clarke took the opportunity to move away from Finn. She kept looking, scanning the shallow water. The radio really shouldn’t have moved that far from where he threw it. Unless he hadn’t actually thrown it here.

She looked over at Bellamy and bit her lip. He had crouched down and was picking at his nails. She sighed and waded through the water back to him. He looked up at her and Clarke fought the urge to hug him. “Where’d you actually throw the radio?” she asked. “The water’s too shallow and there’s barely a current. It should be where you threw it.” He didn’t respond. “I’m not going to let them do anything to you.”

He looked startled at that. “I shot your best friend’s dad, Clarke. You should hate me.”

She sat down next to him and leaned back on her hands. “I’ve always hated his dad. He’s an ass. I’m not thrilled that you killed him, or that you tried to anyways. But that’s more because of how it made you act. But I’m not going to let them kill you when they come down. You’re one of us.” She shrugged. “Besides, Octavia would kill _me_ if anything happened to you.”

Bellamy sighed heavily. “I tossed it over there,” he said, looking upriver. “I think it landed under the tree.”

“Thanks,” she said and pushed herself up. “You’re not a bad person, Bellamy.” He looked at her, face soft, and she made herself look away before she did something stupid like kiss him.

The radio was exactly where he said it would be, and she pulled it out of the water. She hadn’t exactly anticipated that it would be working fine given the river, but water was literally pouring out of it. “Hey Raven! I found it!” she called.

Raven rushed over and Bellamy stood. Raven shook her head when she took it from Clarke’s hands. On Raven’s right hand, stark black lines formed a delicate arrow from the end of her second knuckle, the arrowhead ending at her third knuckle. Clarke wondered if the same mark was somewhere on Finn’s body. She kind of hoped it wasn’t given that he’d been more than willing to cheat on his girlfriend.

“Can you fix it?” Clarke asked.

“Maybe,” Raven said. “But it’ll take half a day just to dry out the components to see what’s broken.”

“Like I said, it’s too late,” Bellamy said, standing in the water a few feet away.

“We can’t talk to the Ark before they vote,” Clarke said. “They’re going to kill 300 people for no reason.”

“We don’t have to _talk_ to the Ark,” Raven said slowly. “We just have to let them know we’re down here, right?”

“Yeah, but how do we do that with no radio?” Finn asked.

Raven smiled. “Flares.” At Finn’s confused expression, she continued. “The pod has flares or something I can turn into flares anyways.”

“Can we get it on our own or do we need others?” Clarke asked. “We got 92 others at camp.”

“Maybe 91,” Bellamy said. Clarke looked at him in alarm. He shrugged. “Octavia’s mad. She found out about Jaha.”

“We’ll need more people,” Raven said.

“Bellamy and I will go back to camp,” Clarke said. “You two go back to the pod.”

“Clarke,” Finn started to say.

“I have a tent for the acid fog, he doesn’t. The pod is better than a tent since it’s sealed. We’ll bring people back to help.”

“What the hell is acid fog?” Raven asked.

“Come on,” Clarke said, and headed for the shore and her pack.

“You don’t trust me to go alone?” Bellamy asked as she put her pack on.

“I trust you. I also don’t want you to get caught in the acid fog. We still don’t know anything about it,” she said, shivering. She didn’t want to see anyone suffer the way Atom did. She especially didn’t want to see Bellamy suffer like that.

She also didn’t want to be around Finn either. The apologizing was worse than finding out. It also kept making her increasingly angry with every apology and guilty, wounded gaze.

They were quiet on the trek back to the camp, but it was less tense than she had thought it would be. He was tense, but he also seemed sad. Which was understandable, but it made her want to hug him and they not only weren’t at a point where they hugged, but they also didn’t have time for that.

Miller was on them as soon as they walked into camp. “Where are the supplies? Where’s Finn?”

“There weren’t any supplies,” Clarke said. She glanced around as kids gathered, asking questions about the pod. “There weren’t any supplies in the pod,” she called out loudly. “Hey!” she said as the kids broke out in complaints. “There was a girl in it, from the Ark. The Council is voting to kill 300 people to conserve oxygen. We need to let the Ark know we can survive down here as soon as possible.”

“What about the radio?” Monty called and Bellamy stiffened next to her.

“There was an incident with the radio,” Clarke said. “It needs to dry out. But we can set off flares from the pod. But we need to hurry.” She looked around. “We need ten people to come with us.”

There was some mumbling amongst the group, and it began to break up. “An incident?” Miller asked.

“It’s fine,” Clarke said firmly and didn’t look at Bellamy. “You’re going to stay here.”

“You’re just deciding that for the both of us, then,” Bellamy said.

“Who else do we both trust enough to leave in charge?” Clarke asked. “And you’re coming back with me, so don’t say yourself.”

Bellamy scowled and looked away. “Yeah, okay, I’m not getting into this,” Miller said, looking between the two of them. “You’ve been coleaders for less than 12 hours and you’re already back to fighting. I’ll be here when you get back.” With that, he turned and walked off.

“We’re not fighting,” Clarke muttered under her breath. She glanced over at Bellamy. “I’m not fighting with you.”

“You gonna tell them?” he asked.

“No. Finn and Raven might, but they won’t hear it from me,” Clarke said. “I trust you.”

He glanced back at her, and while his expression didn’t fully change, it did soften slightly.

Raven and Finn had gotten some work done by the time they got back to the pod. Clarke had no idea what she was looking at, but Raven clearly did and began issuing orders to the new arrivals. Bellamy stood, spine tense and arms crossed over his chest. She stayed by his side and placed a hand on his arm. He looked at her and she said, “I mean it. I’m not going to let them kill you for trying to save your sister.” She wasn’t going to let her mother kill her sometimes jackass of a soulmate the way she’d killed her own husband.

He stared at her for half a moment before he shouted, “You want to save those people or not? We’re on a time crunch, move faster,” without breaking eye contact with her.

“I mean it,” she said, looking him dead in the eyes. He nodded sharply once, and she turned to find Finn staring at her suspiciously.

She ignored him and moved forward to see what she could do to help. They worked quickly but were careful to follow Raven’s instructions as she called them out. They couldn’t afford to ruin anything.

“Clarke, can I have a hand?” Raven asked and Clarke followed her around to the other side of the pod. “Work these bolts here gently.” She held out a wrench. “Rocket fuel likes to go boom.” Clarke started to undo the first bolt warily. “We’re going to need power to fire,” Raven said quietly.

“They’re tying in the batteries on the dropship. Should be ready when we get there,” Clarke said.

“Great. So what’s the problem?” Raven asked.

“Nothing. I just, uh…Well, if we get the rockets to launch, will they see them from the Ark?”

“Like the good book says, it’s all about burn time and cloud cover,” Raven smirked. “But I know your mom will be watching. I’ve never seen anyone love someone the way she loves you.” Clarke frowned and looked away. The way her mother loved was toxic. “You know that, right?”

“I did,” Clarke said, thinking of smuggled charcoal into the Skybox. Raven looked confused. “It’s complicated,” she explained, but Raven still looked like she didn’t understand.

As the three flares launched, she and Bellamy stood next to one another, surrounded by the others. The pink light from the rockets illuminated them all as they stared up. “You think they can see it from up there?” Bellamy asked.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I hope so. Can you wish on this kind of shooting star?” Bellamy looked at her with a raised brow. “Forget it.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to wish for,” he said. “What about you?”

She couldn’t help but look over at Finn. She didn’t love him, not even close. But it hurt that he clearly hoped for Raven even as he pursued her. And it wasn’t Finn she would have wished for as Raven glanced her way and smiled. It was someone who loved and cared for her enough to fall from the sky in a hundred-year-old pod jerry-rigged together.

She looked back to Bellamy and found him looking at her. “I meant what I said. I’m not going to let them kill you.” He sighed and looked away. “You’ve kept us all safe. Without you we’d be much worse off. I, at the very least, would be dead.”

“I almost got you killed because I told Charlotte to slay her monsters,” Bellamy said. “It did get Wells killed.”

“We both set the Murphy ball rolling,” Clarke said. “But I would’ve been dead when we went looking for Jasper if you hadn’t grabbed me.”

Bellamy looked back at her. “You’ve kept us safe too, you know.”

She stared at him for a long while before she looked back up at the sky.

She couldn’t get to sleep that night, too worried about whether or not the Ark saw the flares in time. Monty and Jasper were sleeping fine in the tent behind her, but she wasn’t even laying down when Bellamy pulled the tent flap up and let a bright shine of torchlight in. 

She winced at it as he asked, “Have you seen Octavia?”

“She’s not back?” she asked. “I thought she would’ve been back by now.”

“I’ve checked the camp and she’s not here.” He looked worried, but he usually looked worried when Octavia was involved.

“She’s been out all day?” Clarke asked, standing up and leaving the tent. “Let’s check again just to be safe. You go to the dropship and I’ll check the rest of the tents.”

“Thank you,” he said earnestly.

By the time she’d done a full circle of the camp and Bellamy had checked all three levels of the dropship, her stomach was filled with dread. Octavia really wasn’t in camp anywhere.

“We need to find her,” Bellamy said when they met back up.

“Hey,” Clarke said. “We’re going to. We need to wake everyone up.” Between the two of them, Clarke and Bellamy woke everyone and gathered them together.

“My sister’s been out there alone for twelve hours,” Bellamy said. “Arm up. We’re not coming back without her.”

Monroe was the first to grab an axe from the pile. Clarke saw Jasper move towards the pile, torch in his hand. “Hey, Jasper, you don’t have to do this. You haven’t left camp since we brought you back.”

“Clarke. I need to do this,” he said quietly.

“We need all the people we can get,” Bellamy said from behind her. She turned to look at him, dismayed. Jasper was clearly still terrified of what had happened to him. But he nodded and moved to the weapons.

“We need a tracker,” Bellamy said to her. He seemed to be searching for something in her face. “Finn! Get out here!”

Finn did not immediately leave the tent Raven had claimed for the two of them, apparently not realizing that people were sharing tents for a reason. Bellamy glanced away from her to the tent. “I wouldn’t go in there,” she said, drawing his gaze back.

Bellamy looked like he wanted to say something to her, but instead turned to the group. “Alright, head out.”

“How many people are staying here in case she comes back on her own?” Clarke asked.

“Bunch of people are,” he said. “Finn! We’re leaving!” he called.

The group, armed with makeshift weapons and torches, headed out. “Alright, I’m coming,” Finn said and emerged from the tent.

“Hey, hey, wait,” Finn said, hurrying towards her. She was surprised to see his hair was shorter.

“Nice hair,” she said dryly. She really didn’t want to talk to him.

He looked down and then back towards the tent he’d come out of. “We should talk about this.”

“You have a girlfriend, Finn,” she said. _And I have a soulmate who’s an asshole half the time_. Though, aside from the radio and Murphy he had been less of an asshole lately. “There’s really nothing left to say. We kissed once.” She felt the weight of someone’s gaze and turned to see Bellamy not quite scowling in her direction. She rolled her eyes and stepped away from Finn, intent on catching up to the others.

“Hey, hold on,” Finn said, reaching for her. She turned back and shook his hand off. “It’s true. I care about Raven.”

Care? He _cared_ about his girlfriend. She fell from the sky in a 100-year-old pod for him and all he could say was that he cared about her.

“It’s nothing we can’t stop. It was one kiss,” Clarke said. One kiss that she had deeply regretted ever since she saw Raven kiss him.

“Are you sure?” Finn asked, looking crestfallen. “Because I’m not.”

“Yes,” she said firmly and headed towards the others. “Are we going to split up?” she asked Bellamy.

“Guys! Guys!” one of the boys shouted, pointing up. “Come here!”

“What’s that?” another asked.

Clarke and Bellamy looked up to see a burst of white light, interspersed with pink streaks across the sky. “What is that?” she murmured.

“I think it means the flares worked,” Raven said from behind them. “I mean, it’s gotta be from the Ark, but…”

“It wouldn’t look like that if it was a funeral,” Clarke said, looking to Bellamy. He looked relieved and she couldn’t help but reach for his hand. He grasped hers tightly and she smiled at him.

“We still need to fix the radio,” Finn said. “See if they actually got our message.”

“My sister is out there,” Bellamy said. “And I’m going to find her. You coming or what?”

“Yeah,” Finn said.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Bellamy asked the group. “Move out!”

When she didn’t move with him and her hand slipped out of his own, he stopped and turned to her, confusion evident on his face. “We have to talk to them,” she said. “Let them know what’s happening. The CO2 scrubbers are still failing.”

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. “Clarke.”

“Go,” she said. “Bring Octavia back. I have an idea.”

“I have to do this,” Finn said behind her, clearly to Raven. “And you should stay here and fix the radio.”

“Fix it?” Raven asked. “The transmitter’s smashed. Unless there’s a parts depot down here we’re not talking to the Ark.”

“That was my idea actually,” Clarke said. “There’s a buried car with a radio and there’s a bunker.”

Finn looked at her. “The Art Supply Store?” He looked unhappy and his gaze darted between her and Raven obviously.

“Great,” Raven said, looking at Clarke warily. “It looks like you’re coming with me instead.”

“Hey,” Bellamy said, touching the back of her hand lightly. “Don’t let the Grounders or panthers get you,” he said when she looked at him. “If Octavia’s hurt…”

“Don’t worry,” Clarke said. “We’ll be fine. You bring her back. If she’s hurt, I’ve got her.” He nodded sharply and looked to Finn.

“Let’s go Spacewalker.”

Something flickered across Raven’s face. “Be careful,” Finn said, looking at Raven and then Clarke.

“Hey,” Raven said, grabbing Finn’s arm as he moved away. She kissed him and murmured something quietly. As Finn turned away, he looked to Clarke.

She ignored him. “We should take packs,” Clarke said to Raven.

“Was he being serious about panthers?” she asked, gesturing to Bellamy’s retreating back.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

It was easier than Clarke thought to rip out the car’s radio, but Raven seemed to know what she was doing. They didn’t talk much during the journey beyond Clarke pointing out things to watch out for. Raven seemed more interested in looking at everything in nature that she possibly could.

They hadn’t made it to the bunker yet when the sun rose, something that seemed to delight Raven. They were near the bunker when Raven paused. “They’re beautiful.”

Clarke turned to see her touching what Monty had called lilies. “Raven, I know you just got here yesterday, but we don’t have time for this. Come on.” She wished they had time though, time to enjoy the awe-inspiring earth that surrounded them.

Raven followed her, plucking the lily first. “Hurry up and save the world,” she laughed. “You’re just like your mom.”

“I’m nothing like my mom,” Clarke said firmly.

“Relax, that’s a compliment,” Raven said. “Abby’s a badass. The pod was her idea.” Clarke was glad she was leading so Raven couldn’t see her expression of frustration. “It broke her heart not being able to come down with me. But she never stopped believing you were alive.”

“Yeah,” Clarke said quietly. “Mother of the year.”

“Well, my mom was AWOL most of my life,” Raven said. “When she did show up, it was empty-handed. Pretty sure she had me just to trade my rations for moonshine.”

Clarke knelt and brushed the fallen leaves away from the bunker’s hatch. “How’d you survive?”

“Boy next door. Finn,” Ravens aid and Clarke could hear the smile in her voice. “He shared his rations, remembered my birthday. Saved my life…He’s my family.”

Clarke pulled the hatch open, thinking of how unlucky she’d been with her own family and about the family she’d found that were out there looking for Octavia.

It was dark down in the bunker and Clarke pulled out the flashlights she’d brought and handed one to Raven. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to waste the candles and matches just to search the place. Raven moved forward, looking around as Clarke pulled one of the totes off the shelving racks. “Let’s try this one,” she said as she placed it on the table. She pulled the lid off to start looking. If she didn’t find anything useful for the radio, she’d have a better idea of what they could bring back later.

“How did you find this place?” Raven asked.

“I didn’t,” she said as she shoved a blanket aside. Depending on how much was going back with the, that blanket might fit in her pack. “Finn did.”

The bin she was looking at had what looked like children’s books and toys. She pulled out a car with an antennae sticking out of the back. “Hey? Will this work?”

Raven turned. “Sweet. RF.” She took the car. “Radio frequency,” she explained. “If we can just find the controller…” She headed for the other bins. “We’ll be golden.”

“Alright,” Clarke said, but she couldn’t find it in the bin. She moved on to another one.

“Finn made this,” Raven said behind her.

Clarke turned and saw Raven holding the two headed deer. “Yeah,” she said awkwardly and turned back to her bin. “Uh, we saw this two headed deer our first day on the ground. Welcome to paradise, right?” She rummaged around in the bin a bit more and found the controller. “Got it!”

She turned and Raven was still crouched on the floor, but she rose quickly and came over. Clarke took the deer and set it down, handing Raven the controller. “Finn always does that,” Raven said. “Finds the beauty in the unexpected.” She popped the back of the controller off with her knife.

“Good to go?” Clarke asked.

“Hurry up and go save the world, right?” Raven asked. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Ok. We should take some of this with us since we’ve got the space in our packs,” Clarke said. “Bellamy and I were planning on sending a team today so we don’t have to worry about taking everything, but some stuff would help. I’m bringing all the matches. But anything we can fit that won’t weigh us down if we need to run.”

“From the Grounders?”

“Or the acid fog,” Clarke said, thinking back to whiskey in a cramped space and of Atom and Bellamy’s broken expression. She sighed and shoved all the matches and a few candles in her pack.

The two of them grabbed a few more things and packed them away. In the last bin she checked, Clarke found three utility knives that still looked sharp, something labeled ‘emergency kit’ that she immediately swapped for some of the three packs of matches, and an axe. She shoved the axe under her arm, holding it down as she awkwardly climbed up the ladder when they left. They did need an actual axe for firewood instead of the makeshift ones they had. And she wasn’t going to turn down another weapon.

Raven was quiet on the way back. Clarke wondered about it, but she attributed it to the faster pace she was keeping. Hopefully Bellamy and the others had found Octavia and would be back at the camp. When they reached the camp, nobody had returned yet and Clarke pushed down the flare of panic. Everything would be fine. Octavia was fine. They’d be back soon.

Raven split off to head into the dropship to start working on the radio immediately. Clarke headed for the jumpseats in front of the fire to look at the emergency kit. Hopefully there was something in there that would still be useful after nearly a century. The bag seemed fine at the very least.

“What’s that?” Monty asked, wandering over to her.

“Hopefully supplies we can use,” Clarke said. The large bag unzipped, and Clarke felt like she might cry. There was a compass right on top and it looked like most things were sealed in plastic still. She touched a packet of gauze. Some of the stuff probably wasn’t good anymore, like any adhesive or ointments and the alcohol packs. But there were tweezers, a splint, and what looked like a glass alcohol or mercury thermometer. There was a suture kit, a sewing kit, safety pins, and more down in the bottom of the bag.

She genuinely felt tears gather in her eyes. “So it’s good?” Monty asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Very good.” She zipped it back up and stood. “I’m going to drop this off and check on Raven. Let me know if they come back.”

“I offered to help but she didn’t want it,” Monty said. “I’ll let you know. Jasper’s out there.”

Clarke took her whole pack and the axe, intent on taking it to the dropship. But she looked at the axe and instead stepped into Bellamy’s tent. She’d never been inside before. It was the largest of the tents, constructed from lashed together branches and one of the parachutes. He’d made some furniture, sort of. There was a rack with a t shirt and his pack hanging off. He had a bed too, or at least a raised platform covered in blankets. Mostly the tent was a giant waste of space other people could be sleeping in. Didn’t he get cold without any extra body heat in there?

She stopped that train of thought where it was, blushing. She set the pack and the axe down on his bed and hurried to the dropship.

Raven was sitting at the makeshift table where the radio was, facing the wall of the dropship. “How’s it coming?” she asked. Raven didn’t respond, just kept looking down at the table. “Are you okay? You hardly said a word the whole way back from the bunker.” She hadn’t focused on the nature around them either. Raven still didn’t respond. The only sound was static from the radio.

Raven finally dropped whatever she was holding and turned, standing. She looked…sad and angry. She held up the two headed deer. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me Finn didn’t make this for you. Tell me you weren’t _screwing_ my boyfriend while I was risking my ass to come down here,” Raven said.

“I wasn’t,” she said. “I didn’t—”

“He made one for me too,” Raven said bitterly, lifting her necklace. “Just in case you thought you were special.”

Raven turned back to the console. “Bellamy’s my soulmate,” Clarke blurted.

Raven paused. “And that’s supposed to make a difference?”

“I didn’t have sex with Finn. I haven’t had sex with anyone. Ever. Especially not down here,” Clarke said awkwardly. “Finn never took off his wristband. Even if he didn’t tell me or anyone else down here about you, he didn’t want the Ark to think he was dead. He didn’t want _you_ to think he was dead.”

Raven turned around. She didn’t look angry anymore, just sad.

“We all thought you were going to die. We had a plan to contact the Ark, but the night before you got here it failed. He didn’t tell me about you, but he wouldn’t take the wristband off. We thought you were all going to die and there was nothing we could do to stop it.”

“He could’ve waited more than ten days,” Raven said. She rubbed at her nose and turned around again.

Clarke turned herself and was almost at the door to the dropship when Raven asked, “Do you love him?”

“I hardly know him,” Clarke said honestly.

“And Bellamy? You two don’t seem very chummy.”

“I’ve only known he’s my soulmate for a few days. And most of the time I’ve known him at all I’ve really not liked him,” she said equally as honestly.

Raven let her go after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chronology of this show is wack. Raven says it's been 10 days, but they didn't show 10 days worth of screen time, even including the jump between bringing Jasper back and going out to find the seaweed. That was just the beginning of my struggle. Because for some reason I wanted to give Unity Day an actual date, know how long Seasons 1 and 2 take, and know how long Bellarke have known each other. And the show writers clearly didn't use Google Maps to show that the real Mount Weather emergency bunker and Washington DC are a 12 hour walk from one another on actual roads and sidewalks. I have done so much googling about average walking speed and distances when sunrise and sunset are in Virginia in October. There is no way Bellamy and Lincoln could've gotten from DC to Mount Weather in the time shown in Season 2. 
> 
> Another side thing that has seriously bothered me about the show: where are the abandoned towns? Mount Weather is literally in Mount Weather THE TOWN. There weren't enough bombs to destroy every inch of the country. Obviously DC got bombed and New York City, but there should be towns. Also don't talk to me about Polis. That's not what Baltimore looks like geographically. I mean, they're filming in Vancouver, but they should've tried more.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't think I mentioned it, but I'm ignoring the concept of guest stars and main leads. Monty and Jasper weren't in "Contents Under Pressure." I'm ignoring that. Hence why Miller has already shown up in the story even though his first appearance is "Contents Under Pressure."
> 
> Also, I don't watch the show anymore but fuck Season 7.

She didn’t sleep well that night, but she was pretty sure Raven didn’t sleep at all. Things were too chaotic emotionally, she was worried about Octavia, and everyone out looking for her. She’d hoped they’d be back before night fell again. She and Bellamy hadn’t actually talked about when the group should come back. But since it was Octavia, she wasn’t sure if he would’ve had agreed to a cut off period of looking for his sister.

Early morning sunlight was filtering through the parachute ceiling of the tent she slept in when she heard Jasper’s voice calling for her. All thoughts of possibly going to find food vanished and she stumbled out of the tent to run for the gate. Jasper was there, supporting a limping and exhausted looking Octavia, but she couldn’t see Bellamy or Finn.

“Hey, I’m here, what’s up?” she asked, scanning over Octavia. She seemed to be limping, but other than that she couldn’t see anything wrong.

Then, Bellamy walked into camp, carrying Finn. A knife stuck out of Finn’s side, a stained red cloth wrapped around it. Panic and fear froze her in place momentarily. Some of the boys hovering around the gate rushed to take Finn from Bellamy. She was only a half second behind them, reaching for Finn’s pulse even as her own skyrocketed with stress and panic. “He’s alive!”

“Bellamy wouldn’t let me take the knife out,” Jasper said.

“No, that was a good call,” she said. Finn would have bled out long before they came back. “Get him in the dropship now. Go!”

The boys carefully moved away, leaving Clarke looking at a shaken and exhausted Bellamy. He met her eyes and then moved further into the camp.

“Clarke!” Raven said, coming to her. “Can you save him?”

“No. Not me. I need my mother,” Clarke said. This was well outside the scope of her abilities. “I need to talk to her.”

“There’s still no radio,” Raven said, frustrated and with tears pooling in her eyes.

“Raven. Fix it. Go!” Clarke said. “Monty! Help Raven with the radio! I need it _now_!” Raven ran for the dropship and Clarke followed, reaching out for Octavia as she limped by. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Octavia said. “Just go.” Once Finn was taken care of, she was going to take a look at Octavia. But Finn definitely took priority right now.

Clarke nodded and headed for the dropship. Bellamy turned when she approached. She stopped, remembering the pack. “Your tent – there’s – I found things. They’re in the pack.”

“I’ll get them,” he said gently. “Go.”

She turned and ran the rest of the way to the dropship. The boys had set him down on their larger table and Raven, Monty, and Terra were frantically working on the radio. Clarke felt for Finn’s pulse again and found it hadn’t changed, sluggish and slow. He was so pale from the blood loss. But there wasn’t anything she could do without an actual doctor’s help. There might be internal bleeding, she didn’t know what would happen when she took the knife out other than a lot of blood. She needed her mom or Jackson to help with this. And if they couldn’t get the radio to work, then Finn was going to die. She _couldn’t_ do this without the Ark.

There was an ominous crack of thunder outside, making her jump in surprise. Raven looked back at her. “ _Do_ something!”

“I – I don’t know what to do. He’ll bleed out if I take it out. There might be internal damage. I don’t know how to fix this!”

“He’ll die if you leave it in!”

“I need my mom,” Clarke said, voice breaking.

“Hey,” Bellamy said, coming up behind her. “Here it is. Saw the axe.”

She turned to him and took the bag he held out to her. Their fingers brushed as she took it. “I can’t – I can’t do this,” she said in a panic. “I only had a few months of my internship and that was all useless stuff. I need my mom or Jackson.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy said, reaching out to grab her shoulder. “They’re going to fix the radio and you’re going to do this.” Rain began to fall outside, and wind whipped through the open door.

“I think it’s going to storm,” she said, looking over his shoulder to the glimpses of camp she could see. That was not going to help any surgery she had to do. “An actual storm, not the rain we’ve had so far.”

“I got it,” he said. He glanced over at Finn. “It’s going to be a bad one.”

The storm picked up in intensity on both fronts of rain and wind quickly over the next half hour. More and more delinquents piled in the dropship as Bellamy took control outside, sending them in with things they couldn’t afford to get too wet. Clarke realized they were going to have to close the doors as she watched two boys struggle with the parachute door in the wind. Thunder cracked and boomed through the air and she could feel it in her _bones_. More than a few people shrieked and jumped back at it.

Shit. Was this thing grounded against lightning? Was the radio?

“This is Raven Reyes calling Ark Station,” she heard behind her. Clarke breathed out a sigh, not of relief but of hope. “Come in, Ark Station.” Raven repeated the message as Clarke turned and walked towards her. “Can anyone hear me?”

“You sure you have the right frequency?” Monroe asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Raven said sharply.

“Raven,” Clarke said gently. “You can do this. Okay?”

She moved towards Finn. The EMT scissors in the emergency kit had come in handy when they had to cut his shirt off. The knife and cloth wrapped around it stood out, but it didn’t seem like it was bleeding much anymore. She couldn’t remember if that was a good thing or a sign of internal bleeding.

Raven kept repeating the message. Over and over, “This is Raven Reyes calling Ark Station.”

“This is a restricted channel,” came a voice crackling through the radio. “Who is this? Please identify yourself.”

They all crowded around Raven as she responded. “This – This is Raven Reyes. I’m from Mecha Station. I – I’m transmitting from the ground. The 100 are alive. Please, we need you,” she said, voice breaking at the end.

Clarke looked around, seeing anxious and relieved faces. Where was Bellamy?

“Please, you need to get Dr. Abby Griffin. Dr. Abby Griffin now,” Raven said.

“Hang on Raven! We’re trying to boost your signal,” a new voice said.

“Sinclair,” Terra said. “That’s Sinclair.”

A moment later Clarke heard her mother’s voice. “Raven. Are you there?” Clarke felt an immediate bone deep sense of relief followed by a spike of anger.

“Mom? Mom, it’s me,” she said when Raven looked to her. Even through the static, Clarke could hear how broken her mother’s voice sounded as she said her name. “Mom, I need your help. One of our people was stabbed by a Grounder.”

“Clarke, this is the Chancellor,” came through the radio, followed by a chorus of groans and complaints from the kids. Raven was still holding the transmitter down, so he definitely heard that. “Are you saying there are survivors on the ground?”

“Yes. The Earth is survivable. We’re not alone.” There was no response for a few seconds and she looked at Finn. “Mom, he’s dying. The knife’s still in his chest.”

“Okay. Can you patch me through to Medical?” her mom said.

“Clarke,” Jaha said. “Is my son still with you?”

She froze and looked back at the radio. “I’m so sorry. Wells is – Wells is dead.”

The wind howled outside, and thunder boomed. How did you calculate the seconds between lightning and thunder to convey distance again? And where was Bellamy? He needed to get back inside before he got hypothermia or pneumonia from the rain and cold outside.

“I’m going to talk you through it, step by step,” Abby said. The dropship shook and groaned. “Clarke, give five – to medical – medic,” came through the radio, full of bursts of static that sent panic spiraling through her.

“What? Raven, what’s wrong?” Clarke shouted over the wind, rain, and scared teenagers.

“It’s not the radio, it’s the storm,” Raven said. “It must be scrambling the signal.”

Clarke moved back to Finn’s side just as Octavia came in, drenched to the bone, carrying two containers of Monty’s moonshine. “Pretty sure no germ can survive it,” she explained.

Wind slammed into the dropship. “The storm’s getting worse,” Clarke said. She looked up and saw Monroe. “Monroe, close the doors.”

“We still have people out there,” the girl said.

“Monty and Jasper aren’t back yet,” Octavia said. “Neither is Bellamy.”

They left? When the hell did they leave? _Why_ the hell did they leave in weather like this? “It’s alright,” Clarke said. “They’ll find somewhere to ride it out.” She dropped the needles and thread from the emergency kit into a dish of moonshine.

“You want an extra set of hands on this?” Octavia asked. “I’m real good at sewing. Bell is too.” Clarke glanced at her as she dunked her hands in the moonshine and Octavia shrugged. “Mom was a seamstress. Wound up doing a lot of her work while I was stuck in the apartment and they were gone.”

“Yeah, I never actually got to the suturing stage of my internship,” Clarke said and suddenly realized they didn’t have any painkillers.

“Tell me you can do this,” Raven said. Clarke didn’t reply.

“Hey, they’re back!” Monroe shouted from the still open door.

Bellamy walked in first, dripping water all over the floor and despite everything else going on, Clarke felt a deep sense of relief. Behind him, Drew and Miller dragged someone in. It took Clarke a second to realize it was a Grounder. When they dropped him, she saw he was bloody, brushed, blindfolded, and gagged.

“What the hell are you doing?” Octavia asked.

“It’s time to get some answers,” Bellamy said, glancing at Clarke quickly.

“Oh, you mean revenge,” Octavia said angrily.

“I mean intel,” Bellamy said. He looked to Miller and Drew. “Get him upstairs.”

“Bellamy, she’s right,” Clarke said, moving in front of him.

“Clarke, honey, we’re ready,” Abby said through the radio. “Can you hear me?” Bellamy stared over her shoulder at it, jaw tensing.

“Look,” Clarke said softly. “This is not who we are.”

“Clarke?” her mom asked again.

“It is now,” he said and turned to go close the dropship door.

“Monty and Jasper aren’t back yet,” Terra said. “They were going to get more seaweed for Finn.”

“They’ll be fine,” Bellamy said and pulled the lever. He didn’t look at any of them when he went to climb up the ladder.

Trying to perform surgery with instructions over the radio, surrounded by teenagers that were scared, during their first real storm down on the ground was deeply unpleasant. But it meant that she didn’t have time to focus or dwell on what Bellamy was doing upstairs with the Grounder. Listening to her mother’s instructions was familiar and comforting, but there was a thread behind it of discomfort _because_ it was her mother too.

Any thoughts of the third floor of the dropship vanished when the whole structure began shaking and Finn woke up as she was extracting the knife. Despite the chaos and how she’d pulled the knife from Finn’s side without hurting him more out of sheer luck when she was thrown to the ground.

She called up to the second floor for Octavia when it came time to stitch up the wound. The whole process looked deeply unpleasant, but Octavia was steady as she strung the needle and thread through Finn’s skin. Finn passed out again from the pain before she’d completed four neat and tidy stitches. Finn was lucky it was Octavia stitching him up and not Clarke. He was going to have a scar – so many of them had scars from the Earth – but at least it wouldn’t be as ugly as it could be.

“Okay, I’m done,” Octavia said, tying the thread off. The wound was jagged, but the stitches were even and looked like they’d hold.

“Good. Do you have anything to cover the wound?” Abby asked.

“We’ll make do,” Clarke said. “I found gauze in a bunker yesterday.” She hadn’t thought she’d use it so soon, but thank God for that emergency kit.

“Should he be this pale?” Raven asked, sounding concerned. “Warm too?”

“He’s lost of a lot of blood,” Abby said. “But if your boyfriend’s anywhere near as tough as you are, I’m sure he’ll be fine.” Clarke felt a spike of anger and she didn’t know if it was because of Finn cheating or her mom being proud of Raven or just her mom in general.

Clarke placed the back of her hand on Finn’s shoulder and found Raven’s assessment accurate. “Wait. Mom, she’s right. He’s feverish and his breathing’s uneven.”

“Well, you need to give him some time to recover,” Abby said. “Let me know if he gets any worse, but I think – I think he might just be out of the woods.”

“Well down here there’s nothing but woods,” Clarke said quietly, frustrated. She sighed. “I need a break.”

“Clarke? Clarke, wait,” Abby said. Clarke ignored her and the look Octavia shot her way. “Raven, Octavia, could you give us a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Raven said, standing immediately. Octavia didn’t move, glaring at the radio.

“No,” Clarke said. “No. Stay with Finn.” She was not talking to her mother right now. Or ever preferably. It was time to go deal with the Grounder situation. “I’m gonna go up and check on things,” she told Octavia.

“He won’t let me up there,” Octavia said. “Maybe you can knock some sense into him.”

Only Drew, Miller, and Bellamy were on the third floor of the dropship when she pushed the hatch up. Drew got in her way to block her once she climbed up. “Get the hell out of my way,” she said. She was not in the mood to deal with this level of nonsense.

“It’s okay, let her through,” Bellamy said. Drew reluctantly stepped aside, and she walked to Bellamy. She glanced at the Grounder. With the way he was tied up, she could see tattoos running down his arms or circling around his biceps. Tattoos were far from a common sight on the Ark and she wondered how he’d gotten them. He looked back at her with a blank face and expressionless eyes.

“Well, if he didn’t hate us before, he does now,” she told Bellamy.

He glanced at the Grounder and then grabbed her arm to pull her away, his hold gentle. “Who cares?” he asked. He didn’t let go of her arm. “How’s Finn?”

“Alive,” she said. “His people will care.” She looked over at him. “And how long until they figure out where he is?” She saw the edge of another tattoo peeking out from his sleeve. He shifted and she squinted as it glinted. Was that a trick of the light? Or was it something else? The bit that she could see looked familiar.

“Relax Princess,” Bellamy said, but she moved towards the Grounder, ignoring Bellamy. 

When she reached the Grounder, she started to pull at his sleeve. He thrashed away from her and bared his teeth, trying to keep her from doing it. But there, on his arm in blacks with shimmers of greens and blues and purples completely unlike his other visible tattoos was the exact bird mid-flight that lived on Octavia’s ankle.

“Bellamy,” she began to say but he was already behind her. The ship rocked from the storm outside and he reached out a hand to steady her.

“No,” he said firmly.

“Bellamy, that’s Octavia’s—”

“Clarke!” Raven desperately shouted from two floors down. “He’s seizing!”

She clambered down, half sliding, and heard Bellamy close the hatch behind her. Octavia was on the second floor and glaring up at the hatch as Clarke slid down to the first floor. She didn’t have time to think about birds and soulmarks while she was worrying about Finn. It was only when she climbed back up to the second floor with a knife in her hand and Octavia told her the hatch was blocked from the inside.

“He’s your soulmate,” Clarke blurted out.

“What?” Octavia asked, startled.

“Your bird. It’s on his arm – the Grounder’s. And he poisoned Finn.” She climbed up and pounded on the hatch until Miller opened it. She pushed Miller away when he tried to block her entrance and Octavia climbed up after her.

“What’s on this?” she asked, holding the knife up to the Grounder’s face.

“What are you talking – hey!” Bellamy said as Octavia marched over and pushed the Grounder’s sleeve back, he fought it, but not as much as when Clarke had tried. Bellamy tried to grab her and pull her back, but she slapped him off.

“That’s mine,” she said as she looked at the bird. “That’s my mark.” She looked up into the Grounder’s eyes. His gaze met hers, searching for something.

“No,” Bellamy said, pulling her away. The Grounder lunged forward towards her like he was trying to get to her.

“What is on the knife?” Clarke asked.

“Clarke, he doesn’t understand you,” Octavia said, struggling against her brother. “Bellamy, let me go. Let _him_ go. He has my mark.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in soulmates,” Bellamy said darkly to his sister. “Clarke, the vials.” He nodded at a small metal case.

She tossed the knife down. “Which one?” Time was of the essence. An antidote wouldn’t work if Finn was too far gone when he got it. “Bellamy, let her go. Octavia, show him your mark if he doesn’t speak English.” Who knew if Grounders cared about their marks at all, but he seemed protective of it, so maybe they did. He seemed to like Octavia already so that could only help them. Even if it was disconcerting to think that he’d probably been watching them long enough to start to like Octavia.

Instead, Bellamy stepped forward. “I’ll get him to talk.”

“No,” Octavia said, but as Bellamy let her go, she started to pull at the laces of her boot.

“He wants Finn to die. Why can’t you see that?” Bellamy said. “Having your mark doesn’t change things. His people are trying to kill ours.” He looked at Clarke. “Do you want Finn to live or not?”

“Bellamy,” Octavia said pleadingly, still working at her boot.

“You’re going to show us the antidote or you’re going to wish you had,” Bellamy said, stepping away.

The Grounder looked resigned, though his eyes were locked on Octavia. That was the only reason Clarke had any warning of what Octavia was planning on doing. When his eyes widened in shock Clarke spun to see Octavia had the knife in her hand and was cutting a line into her forearm. She had one boot on and one boot off, her mark clearly visible on her ankle.

“Octavia, no!” Bellamy shouted, darting for her.

“He is my goddam soulmate, he was protecting me from the others, and you are not going to hurt him anymore,” Octavia said, glaring at her brother. “Now let him down. He doesn’t even understand us.”

The Grounder looked concerned and struggled to get forward. He looked at the vials in the case and then back to Octavia.

“He won’t let me die and you don’t get to hurt him,” Octavia said.

Much later after both Octavia and Finn had the antidote in their systems, Finn seemed stable, Raven had gone upstairs, and she had yelled at her mother and broken down, Bellamy was the one to find her. He must have seen the tear tracks on her face because he glanced over at Finn in poorly disguised concern. “Raven said he’s okay, I thought.”

Her lower lip trembled once and then she was crying again. She covered her face with her hands, hands that were still covered in Finn’s blood. She tried to stop crying, but she couldn’t, and she heard Bellamy’s move towards her and then his arms were around her. She wound her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest, crying harder. He pulled her in tightly, stilling the sobs that were shaking her body.

Eventually her sobs died down and she stood wrapped in her soulmate’s arms. It was overwhelming being there and with everything else that was going on. He was warm and his arms were strong around her. One of her hands had somehow wound itself into the hair at the nape of his neck. Her forehead was pressed against his neck and all she could smell was Bellamy. She couldn’t describe what he smelled like beyond sweat, but it was definitely something that was just Bellamy.

Bellamy cleared his throat after a few minutes. “Is he going to be okay? I know you two…have a thing.”

“No thing,” Clarke said and didn’t move. “I was just pretty and convenient. And, in case you haven’t noticed, Raven’s in love with him. I definitely didn’t know he was cheating on her with me.” She paused for a moment and neither made a move to separate. “I think I maybe broke the radio hanging up on my mom.”

“Is that why you were crying?” Bellamy asked. If anything, he held her closer, his nose almost nuzzling her head. Clarke closed her eyes and tucked her face more firmly into him.

“She said my dad would be proud of me,” she said. “But she’s the one that turned my dad in, not Wells. He let me think that it was him so I wouldn’t hate her, so I’d still have her. I figured it out the day before we – before you found him. I left him alone in the graveyard to check on Jasper right after I told him I knew.” Her eyes started to fill with tears again. “I told her I knew about it and I yelled at her and I hung up on her and maybe broke the radio. I hate her.”

“But she’s your mom,” Bellamy said, finishing her thought. “I understand that feeling,” he sighed. Clarke felt that he probably did understanding both hating and loving your mother.

The hatch opened and Bellamy stepped back from her, leaving her feeling cold without his arms around her. Raven climbed down and when she turned around, she eyed the two of them suspiciously.

“You should sleep,” Bellamy said suddenly. “Both of you. I’ll keep everyone else on the second floor for tonight.”

“You can’t keep 90 people on the second floor to sleep,” Clarke said. “They’re already crammed up there and you aren’t going to let anyone on the third floor.”

“I can try,” Bellamy said.

“Bellamy, it’s fine. And if Octavia’s down here, then you won’t have to worry about her trying to sneak up to her soulmate while _you’re_ sleeping,” Clarke said.

“I’ll send some people down,” he said and pushed past Raven to climb up the ladder.

“That was weird,” Raven said once he was gone. She glanced over at the radio. “You good?”

“Yes,” Clarke said. Then, “No. No I’m not.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Raven asked warily.

“No,” Clarke said. “You want a hammock or the weird couch?”

In the morning she woke to the sound of dozens and dozens of feet climbing down the ladder. Raven cracked an eye, grunted, rolled over on the couch, and apparently went back to sleep. The others sleeping on the first floor grumbled but started getting up when the dropship door opened. Clarke wanted to stay in the hammock but knew there was a lot of work that needed to be done.

“Hey assholes, why’d you close the doors?” Jasper shouted from outside. Once the door was fully open, Monty came in, arms full of seaweed. “We had to spend the night in the rain, unlike the rest of you.”

Monty rolled his eyes and brought the bundle of seaweed over the Clarke. He looked at Finn. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “You didn’t have to do this, not while it was storming.”

“Who knows what was on that knife. He’ll need the antibiotics,” Monty shrugged.

“The knife was actually poisoned,” Clarke said. “And the Grounder’s Octavia’s soulmate.”

“I – okay, that’s a lot,” Monty said. “I’m gonna see if we can get the fire started to boil some water for seaweed tea. How do you know the Grounder’s Octavia’s soulmate?”

“I saw her mark days ago. And, uh, he’s upstairs,” Clarke said. “Third floor. Bellamy’s got it locked down.”

“Jasper’s going to freak,” Monty said. “I’m going to go find him and break the news.” He headed back outside the dropship.

Once the dropship cleared out, Clarke puttered around, getting the seaweed ready to turn into tea and putting things away that had been knocked around in the storm. A few moments later Bellamy climbed down the ladder. 

He glanced over at Finn before moving to her side. “Spacewalker survived the night. You get any sleep?” he asked quietly.

“Some,” she admitted. “I, uh, when you heard my mom on the radio you looked…”

“It’s fine,” he said, looking away.

She reached out for his hand, tangling their fingers together. “You deserve a pardon too,” she said. He looked back at her. “I promise I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe from them.” He didn’t look convinced. “Bellamy, you’ve saved all of us.”

“Clarke, I shot the Chancellor,” he said.

“And he’s not dead.” She stepped closer to him, still holding his hand. “I’m not the only one who’ll fight for you, either.”

Finn groaned weakly and they both looked over to see him weakly raise his head from the bed. He looked confused to see the two of them. Blushing, Clarke realized how close she and Bellamy had been standing. She moved to Finn’s side and he smiled up at her. She heard Bellamy leave the ship.

“Hey,” Finn said, and she felt him grasp her elbow gently as she leaned down over him.

“Raven,” she said, pulling away from his touch. “He’s awake.” The other girl was up instantly and moved to Finn’s side.

She left the two of them alone and walked out of the dropship. Their camp was a mess after the storm, but everyone was working together to fix it even though they’d only been outside for half an hour. She looked around and found Bellamy near his toppled over tent. When she drew near, he turned to her and she saw he had the axe strapped to his thigh.

“Finn?” he asked.

“Raven’s with him,” she shrugged and looked out at their camp.

“We’ll get it cleaned up,” he told her.

“I wish this was our only mess,” she said, glancing back at the top of the dropship where Octavia’s soulmate was still tied up. “I may have also been crying last night because we were going to torture someone.”

“ _I_ was going to. There wasn’t going to be a ‘we’ involved,” Bellamy said.

“But I was going to let you,” she said. “I wasn’t going to stop it.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy said softly. “Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things.”

“What are we going to do with him? We can’t keep him locked up forever. Octavia won’t let us, and we don’t have the resources. And his people will figure it out.”

“If we let him go, he’ll be back with more of his people,” Bellamy said. He sighed heavily. “It’s hard running things.” They stood next to one another in easy silence for a few moments before he spoke again. “How’d you even know what her mark looks like?”

“She saw mine,” Clarke said. “She figured it was only fair to show me hers.” While she was pretty sure Octavia had kept her word and hadn’t said anything to Bellamy, she really did feel like he knew sometimes.

There was a brief flicker of something across his face. “Has Spacewalker seen it?”

“No. And he won’t either,” she said. 

“Because of Raven?”

“No,” she said, fighting the urge to look away. “Because I know his doesn’t match.”

He smiled faintly and Clarke was almost certain he knew they had matching soulmarks, but neither of them said anything.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea that they never pulled any of the INCREDIBLY useful stuff from the bunker still irritates me.

Miller brought up the idea of going to the bunker after they’d managed to get the tents back up to hopefully dry out in the sun before it was time to sleep in them. “We gonna find the stuff at that bunker of what?” he asked her.

“We should,” Clarke said, looking out over the camp. “We’ll need the blankets at least. I don’t know what else is there. Let me find Bellamy.”

“Am I going to have to stay behind again?” he asked.

“Depends if Bellamy wants to come too,” Clarke shrugged. Miller scoffed as she headed off to find Bellamy. He was inside the dropship on the second floor and she could hear him arguing with Octavia about the Grounder. “Hey!” she shouted up. “I’m taking people to the bunker! You coming?”

“You want to go to the bunker now?” Bellamy called back down.

“Blankets. Everything outside is wet,” she said. “I’m going whether or not you agree.”

“You’re taking people there?” Finn asked from where he was lying on the table.

“Yup,” Clarke said. She glanced at Raven. “I assume you want to stay here? I’ll take Monty or Terra for any tech if you do.”

“Yeah, you should take one of them,” Raven said. “I’m fine here.”

Since Bellamy hadn’t responded, Clarke called up, “I’m leaving, be back in less than three hours!” She headed out of the dropship to pick who to was going to come with her. Miller for sure since Bellamy didn’t want to come, Monty or Terra, maybe Monroe, Jones, Kim, maybe Pascal.

“Monty!” she called and walked towards him. “Finn found a bunker with a lot of supplies. Raven’s staying here and we need a tech expert.”

“You should take Terra,” Monty said. “Jasper’s freaked about how the Grounder’s here. I’m staying.”

“Okay,” Clarke said. “I’m giving us three hours to get there and get back.”

“See you in – is Finn the only other one who knows where it is? In case you’re not back in three hours?” Monty asked.

“I took Raven, but I don’t know how well she’ll remember,” Clarke said. “We’ll be fine.”

“Be careful,” Monty said.

Clarke nodded and went to find the others to tell them they were going. The nine of them agreed and Clarke went to find Miller as their last member. When she found him, he was speaking with Bellamy and didn’t look very happy. Hopefully it meant that Bellamy was coming with her.

“You’re not going out there alone,” Bellamy said when she walked over to them.

“I never said I was,” Clarke said. “Ten other people, including Miller, are coming with me.”

“Miller’s not going with you,” Bellamy said. “I am.”

“Okay. I got everyone else, so let’s go,” she said, fighting the urge to smirk at him.

She led them to the bunker, but the journey was different from when she led Raven there. She felt far less emotionally conflicted and Bellamy was at her back. She didn’t fully remember where the hatch was, so it did take her a few moments to find it, but that had happened with Raven too.

“Any day now,” Bellamy said.

“Shut up,” she said as she literally stumbled on the hatch. She crouched down to lift it up. “I’ve only been here three times and twice I was following Finn.” She started down the ladder and when she reached the bottom, Bellamy started to climb down after her. She pulled out her flashlight to help light it for him.

“What happened here?” Bellamy asked as he came to stand next to her.

“Finn,” she said, shrugging. “He was upset about the wristbands.”

“So he flipped some tables?” Bellamy asked. He lit his own flashlight and ventured further into the bunker. “This is really good,” he said, looking around.

“We should bring some of the tubs back,” Clarke said.

“There’s food?” Jones asked, shining a light on the shelves next to the kitchenette.

“Very expired food,” Monroe said. “We probably could repurpose the jars at least if the food didn’t turn toxic. We’d have to boil them first.”

“Okay,” Bellamy said as Pascal closed the hatch after himself. “Everyone, choose a tub. We want anything that could be useful.”

“Should we leave some blankets here in case someone has to use this to hide from acid fog?” she asked.

Bellamy frowned. “We’ll wait to see how much there is in here. Did you bring all the matches?”

“No, I swapped some out for the emergency kit. There’s more candles, some of which are heavier than I wanted to bring with me. We should leave the candles that are out, at least. Or switch them out and leave the heavier ones here.”

“I found knives!” Jones called, crouched in front of the cabinets of the kitchenette. “They’re cooking knives, but they’re sharp.”

“They’ll work for skinning,” Monroe said. “And we can use those pots too. Don’t know if they’re fire safe, but we can use them. I think this one’s cast iron!”

“I got a shit ton of pills,” Terra said, looking to Clarke. “Like a huge bottle of aspirin. You know if drugs would be good after a hundred years? I mean, I figure not, but…” she shrugged.

“Pretty sure they’ve gone bad,” Clarke said, but went to peer into the tub. She poked around it and pulled a couple of genuinely huge bottles of pills out. Underneath the bags of bottles was a treasure trove of items.

“Toothbrushes,” Terra sighed happily. “That’s so many toothbrushes.”

“And razors,” Clarke said. She looked over at Michael. “You can stop cutting your face when you shave.”

“It itches when it grows in,” he said defensively.

“You know what’ll itch worse? An infection in your face. We should start tossing things in here to take back,” she said. “I have no idea if that soap is still good, but we’re taking it too.”

“We’re taking this one,” Bellamy said, and Clarke went to see what he found.

“Books,” she said in surprise. There weren’t a ton of books, but there were over a dozen. There were also a couple of tablets, maybe a music device, and what looked like chargers and headphones too. She gently picked up one of the books. “ _The Illiad_.”

“We’re taking them,” he said. “There’s probably some more books, maybe some music or movies on the tablets.”

“We’re having movie night if there’s any Disney in there. You think they have a projector? Between me, Monty, and Raven we could probably make it all tie into the dropship’s solar panels.”

“You want to watch Disney movies?” Bellamy asked incredulously.

“It’s comforting,” Terra shrugged. Clarke had to admit the thought did make her think of being young and small, clustered together with other children. Animated movies were standard childcare practices for the under tens on the Ark. “Also, your sister’s never seen them and deserves to,” Terra said pointedly.

Bellamy frowned at that. “We should be focused on other things.”

“Too much stress is bad for the body,” Clarke said, bumping his shoulder with her own. She left him with the books to check out the door at the back of the bunker.

She opened it and found a bathroom. “Huh,” she said. There would have to be a bathroom if the family was going to live here, but she wondered how it worked. What kind of water supply did it have? Did it have a water heater? What power source did the bunker have? She stepped into the bathroom and the light of the flashlight bounced off the mirror.

The sight in the mirror surprised her. It made her realize that she hadn’t seen herself in almost a year. The last time she could remember looking in a mirror was on her seventeenth birthday. The girl staring back at her looked very different from the girl she remembered. Her hair was longer, but she’d already known that. She was surprised to see her hair wasn’t straight anymore, though. It curled and frizzed out. She assumed that had to do with the humidity. The temperature-controlled air on the Ark was dry and harsh.

She looked tired and like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was tired, exhausted even. And she didn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders, but it sure felt like the weight of the Ark was there. She didn’t look like an almost eighteen-year-old. She looked older.

She looked away from the mirror and crouched down to open the cabinet. More hygiene products and some cleaning products that were probably useless. Despite Roma’s comment about shampoo days before, Clarke did hope the shampoo or at least the soap still worked. They all could use some soap.

She paused at the thought of Roma. The graveyard outside the dropship still only had four graves, but there should have been more. But they couldn’t bring Roma, Pietro, and John Mbege back with them when they brought Octavia and Finn back to camp.

“What the hell is a ‘Bath and Body Works’ and why are there so many candles from them?” Pascal asked.

Clarke turned to see Pascal scowling at one of the candles. “Those are the heavy ones,” she said before gathering the items from under the sink. She dumped them into the tub with the other items Terra found. “I’d leave those here for now. If we take the other candles, we can come back for those ones later.”

“Sounds good,” Pascal said.

They packed up as much as they could between the packs and the three tubs they decided to haul back to camp. While they had the blankets from the bunker, it wasn’t going to be enough. They really needed to start thinking about sleeping arrangements for the winter. Freezing to death was going to become an actual concern sooner than they’d think.

“You bring anything good back?” Miller asked when they returned to camp.

“Blankets, toothbrushes, kitchen stuff,” Clarke said.

“Tablets,” Terra said. “Hopefully with entertainment stuff on them.”

“I should check on Finn,” Clarke said. “Should we sort through them in the dropship? We should keep the candles, matches, and tech in there at least in case we get another storm like that.”

“Good idea,” Bellamy said. “You should have one of these tubs for medical supplies anyways.” He looked at the others. “Into the dropship.”

They all carried the tubs and packs into the dropship. Raven was sitting at Finn’s side. “You’re back,” she said. “You got any tech?”

“Tablets and maybe music players,” Terra said and dug through the tub to find them. She held them up. “Think we can make the solar panels charge them?” Raven grinned and moved over to Terra, reaching for the devices.

Clarke went to Finn to check on his injury. He looked pleased to see her. “How do you feel?” she asked and lifted up his shirt before peeling the gauze away. The wound still looked angry, but it wasn’t seeping. She’d have to check with Jackson about when it would be safe to take the stitches out.

“It hurts,” Finn said. “Willow bark doesn’t taste great.”

“Sorry,” Clarke said. She pressed gently at the area around the wound and he flinched and hissed. “Sorry,” she repeated. The skin still felt warm, but he didn’t feel feverish anymore, which was a very good sign.

He tried to take her hand in his, but she stepped back. “Clarke,” he said, quiet and pleading.

“You need to keep drinking the seaweed tea,” she said and turned away from Finn to see Bellamy staring at her over Miller’s shoulder by the base of the ladder. She glanced over at Raven and then took the few steps to Bellamy and Miller.

“We’re running low on meat,” Miller said when she walked over. “We need to go hunting. Nobody’s gone since Monty found the willow tree.” He looked at Clarke pointedly.

She held her hands up. “You go hunting. I’ll stay here. We do need to figure out how to store food for winter even if the Ark comes down, we’re going to need a food source.”

“Earth Skills talked about jerky,” Miller said. “I think we can maybe figure it out. And Tim and Manny have been working on traps and snares while you were gone.”

“We might have to go hunting every day,” Bellamy said. “We should take Monty and anyone else who knows about foraging.”

“Sounds good,” Clarke said. “Think you should go out now? There’s hours of daylight left.”

Bellamy exchanged a glance with Miller. “You think they’re going to be enough?” he asked, eyes flicking up.

“They’ve got the hatch blocked,” Miller said. “She can’t get in.”

“Is this about the Grounder and Octavia?” Clarke asked. “We _can’t_ keep him here.”

“Our only other solution is to kill him,” Bellamy said.

Finn scoffed behind them. “You could just let him go. You shouldn’t have brought him back here.”

“Finn, you would’ve died if we didn’t get the antidote,” Raven said. “He almost killed you. We can’t let him go.”

Clarke turned to Bellamy. “If you kill him, I don’t know what she’ll do. He’s her soulmate.”

“They don’t even know each other,” Bellamy said. “He doesn’t even speak English. She’s never believed in soulmates before.”

“It’s different when you find them,” Miller said and all eyes in the dropship turned to him. “Or so I’ve heard. Read,” he said defensively.

That was certainly interesting, especially given Monty’s comment about Miller the other day. And, as she thought about it, kind of an accurate statement. She’d been a little more ambivalent about finding her soulmate before she’d found out it was Bellamy. She didn’t know when she was going to tell him, and she was a little worried about how he’d react, but she wanted to. It felt like he knew sometimes, but she didn’t know _how_ he knew.

“We need some solution that doesn’t involve killing him,” she said. “Go hunting, we’ll worry about foraging tomorrow.”

Miller looked to Bellamy. “You, me, three others for today?” Bellamy nodded and Miller headed out of the dropship.

“I’ll work on sorting the rest of this out while you’re gone,” Clarke said. “Some of this we can put away now. Where’d the knives go?”

“There were knives?” Finn asked.

“There was a kitchen,” Clarke said. She took the knives from Monroe. “You found a whetstone? That’s going to be really useful.”

“But do we know how to use one?” Bellamy asked as he followed her out of the dropship.

“We’ll figure it out,” she shrugged. She dropped the knives off with the rest of the weapons and headed back to the dropship, Bellamy following her the whole time.

“Hey,” he said when they were just outside of it. She turned to him just in time to see him glance around. He pulled something out of his pack and shoved it into her hands. “Here. We’ll be back after dark.”

He stalked off to where Miller was waiting by the gate. She only looked down at the bundle once he and the others were gone. Whatever it was, it was wrapped in a scrap from the parachute and it was shaped like a book. She moved over to the woodpile to open it in as much privacy as she could get in camp. She unwrapped it carefully and her smile grew as more and more became visible.

A sketchbook.

He’d found a sketchbook for her in the bunker. And, as she unrolled the rest, pencils too. Well, she’d already known about the pencils, but she hadn’t even thought to grab them. But he had. He’d brought her a present.

The wonder and joy of the sketchbook and pencils in her hands heavily outweighed the joy of seeing the one pencil that Finn had brought her. She knew Finn liked her. It had seemed like Bellamy hated her for the first week on the ground. But he didn’t. And now he – her soulmate – had brought her a present. And he must’ve asked someone, or overheard someone talking about it, because she’d certainly never told him she liked to draw.

She wanted to get him something, but what was she going to be able to find on the Earth? Or what could she _make_ him. She looked down at the sketchbook and started to think.

When she woke up the next morning, the sketchbook was tucked between her and the side of the hammock. It had a few things in it so far, mostly just to practice before figuring out what she was going to do for Bellamy. Sketches of the trees, the dropship, even one of Octavia just in case that’s what she decided to go with. She had some ideas, but she wasn’t sure what _fit_.

She blushed as soon as she saw Bellamy standing by the fire in the morning. She tucked the sketchbook more firmly into the inside of her jacket before walking over to him. She held her hands out over the fire to warm. It was getting pretty cold in the mornings now. “Thanks,” she said quietly, not able to look at him.

“For what?” he asked.

“The sketchbook,” she said. “Thank you. I really like it.”

She chanced a glance at him and was pleased to see a faint blush on his cheeks. He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “Miller’s going to round up the hunters and Monty. We’re going to leave in a little bit.”

“Be prepared for acid fog,” she said. “The bunker’s a good spot to hide if needed. There’s a car too, but I’ll have to show you where it is. Just stay safe.”

“We’ll be fine,” Bellamy said.

She watched them go out the gate and into the woods before turning and surveying the camp. There was still a lot that needed to be done to set it to rights and they still had to plan for winter. If Finn was better, she planned to move him into a tent and out of the dropship. If he was out of the dropship, she could try to set up an actual medical corner on the first floor. The injuries hadn’t been too bad, excluding Finn and Jasper, but it would be nice to have an actual dedicated space where she could keep the few things they’d managed to collect.

“Hey Clarke,” Sterling asked from behind her. “When should the firewood team go out?”

“After I figure out if anyone knows how to build a smokehouse. I don’t know what we’d need for it. I just know we need one,” Clarke said.

“That was in some Earth Skills class. I think you need a lot of long branches to form the structure and make it as airtight as possible.”

Clarke shrugged. She really hadn’t done well in Earth Skills. “Okay then. Firewood team can go now then. Some of the wood should have dried out since the storm.”

“Okay, I’ll get everyone together,” Sterling said and headed off.

“Clarke?” another voice called, and Clarke turned to see Terra. “Raven thinks she can get the vid screens working again, so we’re going to focus on that today.”

“That’ll be good. Maybe Jaha will let parents talk to their kids,” Clarke said. “Not that she had any intention of talking to her mother.

“That’ll be good for the younger ones,” Terra said. “I think we can get the tablets to work, but it’s a low priority right now. I hope there’s music or movies or something on there. Unity Day’s coming up and we deserve something fun instead of the pageant and Jaha’s dumb speeches.”

“And Octavia’s never seen any of them,” Clarke pointed out. “And speaking of Octavia, I need to go find her.”

Octavia was on the second floor of the dropship and was glaring up at the closed hatch. “My brother’s an asshole,” she said when Clarke climbed up.

“Yes, he is,” Clarke agreed. Since nobody else was on the second floor, but Finn and Raven were on the first floor, Clarke jerked her head to the wall away from the hatch. Octavia followed her over, looking confused. “Did you tell him?” Clarke asked.

“What? Tell who what?” Octavia asked.

“Did you tell Bellamy?” Clarke asked. “He gave me this,” she said and pulled the sketchbook out. “And I didn’t tell him I like art and drawing.”

“He got you a present? Where’d he even find that?”

“The bunker, I think,” Clarke said.

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Octavia said. “But that’s…interesting.”

“I think he knows, but I don’t know _how_ he does,” Clarke said. “He really didn’t like it when Murphy had a knife to my throat.”

“He also really was worried when he found Wells. Finn was fucking useless,” Octavia said. “I guess he doesn’t know how to deal with grief. A lot of people checked in – Bellamy kept most of them out of the tent. But Finn only came to update me on Jasper.”

Really? That was interesting. And maybe something she could’ve known before Finn had kissed her. Some people didn’t know how to handle grief, but now that she thought about, he had acted like things were normal.

Octavia looked up at the hatch. “He’s even more of an asshole if he does know. That’s _my_ soulmate he’s got locked up there.”

Clarke could fully admit that if Bellamy did know they were soulmates, there were a lot of double standards going on. Yes, Octavia’s soulmate had nearly killed Finn and in the moment, she might’ve been willing to let Bellamy torture him for information. But they had appeared out of nowhere and were an unknown entity. And apparently, they had their own language or English on the ground and English on the Ark had drastically drifted from one another. Which was honestly possible, given the other languages on the Ark.

Miller was the first one through the gate, a deer slung across his shoulders. The delinquents rushed to him, ecstatic. The other hunters followed him, all carrying some sort of animal, or, in Monty’s case, two packs with something green poking out of the top.

But she couldn’t see Bellamy. Miller had come in grinning widely though, so she wasn’t worried, just confused.

He shouldered through the gate, a panther over his own shoulders a minute after the others were through. He was grinning and his eyes scanned the crowd until they met hers and held for a few breaths. Her own breath caught in her throat until her view was blocked by Monty holding up the two packs.

She blinked and took a half step back, startled. “Look!” he said. She had absolutely no idea what the green, viney, leafy plant was. “It’s kudzu!”

That really didn’t clarify anything. “I have no idea what that is,” she said.

“It’s food! Grows like an absolute weed. I’m surprised it hadn’t overtaken the park, honestly,” Monty said.

“Park? What park?”

“We found a big park type thing. There was what looked like a playground there and a couple of buildings. Most of the surrounding trees were completely overrun, but most of the park wasn’t.” He leaned in. “I told him they weren’t edible or medicinal, just so you know.” He winked and headed off.

“What?” she called after him. “Monty?”

“Hey Clarke,” Bellamy said, and she turned to see him holding a fistful of flowers. She stared at the bright yellows, [purples](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/dw/image/v2/BBBW_PRD/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-jss-master/default/dw4fc46b7e/images/products/flowers/01655p_01_amazonneonpurple.jpg?sw=387&cx=302&cy=0&cw=1196&ch=1196), and [deep reds](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1537/5553/products/21930_grande.jpg?v=1486448105) before looking up at his face. He looked a little bashful. “I – we found a garden or a park or something. And there were sunflowers. I know you can dry the seeds and eat them.” He held out the fistful of blooms at her. She reached for them and he said, “Careful, they’re prickly. I, uh, don’t know what the other two do, but I thought you might know.”

Their hands met as she took them from him. “Thank you.” The sunflowers were big and fat and she smiled brightly at him. Over Bellamy’s shoulder Monty winked at her from a few feet away.

‘I told him they weren’t edible or medicinal.’ That’s what Monty had said.

“I’m gonna go check on the, uh, yeah,” Bellamy said and walked off.

Clarke looked back down at the flowers and then back at Bellamy. He’d brought her flowers knowing they weren’t useful, just pretty. But he had also brought her useful flowers. Now she just had to figure out how to dry the seeds. She assumed the seeds needed to be dried before anyone could eat them.

She headed into the dropship, smiling down at the flowers. “Where’d those come from?” Octavia asked.

“Your brother,” Clarke said and looked up to see Raven and Octavia staring at her and Finn glaring at the flowers. “Sunflower seeds,” she said sheepishly. “We can eat them.”

“Did they bring back a lot of food?” Raven asked.

“Bellamy had a panther,” Clarke said, and Octavia made a face that conveyed how much she was looking forward to that. “Some deer, rabbits, and Monty found kudzu, but I don’t know what that is other than a plant.”

“Did Earth Skills cover kudzu?” Raven asked. “Or is that an Agro Station thing?”

Clarke shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know if he knows this because of Earth Skills. I wasn’t any good at it.” She’d thought it wouldn’t matter because they weren’t going to the ground any time soon. Bad planning on her part, but how was she supposed to know that she was going to get sent down? “I started reading for the medical component once I got the internship, but I mostly read ahead in the internship stuff, not the Earth Skills stuff.”

“I only know what Bell managed to tell me,” Octavia said. “So not much.”

“I get the feeling Earth Skills wasn’t as useful as they thought it would be,” Raven said.

Clarke shrugged and wondered what she could use as string to tie the stems upside down to something over in her medical corner of the dropship.

Finn spent the night in a tent with Raven watching over him. That meant Clarke slept in the dropship with only Octavia’s company, which was slightly less than pleasant. Octavia was still incredibly frustrated with her brother and he headed up to the third floor to spend the night, relieving Conor’s watch over the Grounder.

Miller headed out with Monty and some of the others to head back to the park to hunt and gather more kudzu. It didn’t taste bad, which was a definite improvement over panther meat. But it had been a bit of a tough sell the night before to eat the kudzu instead of the meat. Honestly, she wasn’t pro kudzu for the nutritional benefits of eating plants instead of just meat and nuts, though it had been an adjustment for everyone to go from never eating meat to only eating meat. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies weren’t a concern right now – survival was. But if they ate kudzu and other plants, it meant any nuts and meat would last them longer.

Bellamy stuck around camp to help set up the smokehouse since they had all the wood for it. Clarke hoped the smokehouse worked. They didn’t have any other way of storing or preserving the meat for the winter. They _needed_ this to work. Weather was going to be a bigger problem, but she had hope that they were going to find a way to stay warm. That was going to be a much larger concern much sooner than running out of meat would be.

Raven and Terra were finishing up the process of hooking up the radio and video screens together. Raven assured both her and Bellamy that it shouldn’t take too much longer. Bellamy didn’t seem pleased and Clarke knew she wasn’t. Bellamy wasn’t pleased for obvious Council related reasons even if he wasn’t saying anything, and Clarke wasn’t pleased for Abby Griffin related reasons. The news that her mother had been kicked off the Council for her part in Raven’s arrival on the ground caused mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was still furious at her mother for her father and now for her willingness to break the law to suit her own needs. But she still felt such a sense of relief that her mother hadn’t been floated over breaking the law.

To distract herself from the whole thing, Clarke planned to spend the day figuring out if the soap they brought back from the bunker worked or not. If anyone else was grievously injured again – and God did she hope that wouldn’t happen – soap would be much better than moonshine for sterilizing her hands. Also, some of the teenagers could really use some soap. Actually, it wasn’t some of them. They all could use some soap. And if it did work, then she had an idea to get everyone some semblance of clean.

“I need a parachute or one of the tarps,” Clarke said when she found Bellamy. He looked very confused. “Actually, a tarp would be better,” she said, thinking about it. Nudity wasn’t exactly as taboo as it had been on Earth before when it came to the Ark, but hormonal teenagers were hormonal teenagers and it wasn’t like they had been getting naked around everyone on the Ark. But communal showers were a thing there too.

“Why do you need a tarp?” Bellamy asked. “They’re all being used. Same with the parachutes.”

“The soap is still good. We’re getting clean,” Clarke said.

Bellamy’s eyes went a little wide at that. “What?”

“We’ll do it in shifts. But I want to put a tarp across the corner. We’ve got enough water stored that we can spare it and then go to the river to get more tomorrow.”

“You can’t go to the river instead?” Bellamy asked.

“The water’s freezing and it’s not safe to be out there. We have a fire to warm the water, walls, and guards. I’d set it up in the dropship instead, but I’m sure we’re going to get water everywhere.”

“I – what?” Bellamy asked. “You want to set up a shower?”

“I mean, that’s the dream, but we can’t manage that. I don’t need the tarp for the whole day. I just need it for a few hours.”

“Okay. Whatever,” Bellamy said. “I’ll get you a tarp.”

Word spread quickly that they were all going to be able to clean up with actual soap. She had plenty of help setting up the tarp, boil the water, and find the towels from the bunker. It had been at least sixteen days since any of them had showered in the Skybox. They’d been doing their best with just water so far, but actual soap was exciting.

There were too many in the camp to split it by gender, so it was going to take a while to get everyone cleaned up. The hunters and gatherers could bathe when they got back to camp. Everyone just agreed to shifts though, which wound up working just fine.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable stripping mostly down to scrub up with open air around them. The Grounder had obviously been watching them and they didn’t know if any others were out there. It was also very cold even with heated water, but it was better than the river or her dip at the waterfall.

But it had honestly improved morale considerably. And when Bellamy disappeared behind the tarp to wash up himself, she maybe got distracted thinking about the planes of his chest and the others parts of him that she hadn’t seen yet. Given that she’d already washed up and how cold it was, she knew he wasn’t going to dump a bucket of water over his head and the water wasn’t going to run down his chest…but she could daydream.

By the time the hunters got back with more kudzu, sunflowers, a whole ton of nuts, and a few animals, there was more good news. Raven and Terra fixed the radio and the vid screens. Not so good news for Clarke, considering the Council wanted to speak with her in the morning.

And, as Miller, Monty, and the others walked into camp, drumbeats rang out, quickly accompanied with a man’s voice singing, “ _Let’s get down to business to defeat the Huns_.”

Clarke laughed as Raven came out of the new video screen tent, fists raised in the air. “The tablets and the music players work!”

“This is asking for trouble,” Bellamy said from behind Clarke.

She looked at him and shrugged. “It’s not like the Grounders don’t already know where we are. The dropship’s a bit hard to miss.” He still didn’t look pleased. “Hey. The Council wants to talk to me in the morning since Raven got the video screens working. They want to talk to the leaders—”

“I’m not talking to Jaha,” Bellamy said harshly.

“We’re co leaders. And we’re not going to let them kill you,” she said, reaching out and taking his arm. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“You don’t know that,” Bellamy said, staring off away from her. Clarke followed his gaze to Octavia. She was pretty sure the siblings hadn’t spoken more than twenty words to each other since the mark matching Octavia’s had been revealed. “I’m not talking to Jaha or anyone else on the fucking Council.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The best way to get rid of kudzu is actually to eat it and you can eat everything but the vine. And the type of sunflowers that you plant in gardens and the type of sunflowers that you can eat the seeds of are two different types, but let's ignore that. The flowers he gets her are sunflowers, dianthus (the purple), and celosia (the red). I have no idea if soap is good after a hundred years, but who cares. It's mostly an excuse for them to think about each other naked.
> 
> Coming up: Day Trip. I wonder what could POSSIBLY happen during that? The nuts they brought back are in fact Jobi nuts.


	10. Chapter 10

Things were in full swing around camp by the time Clarke’s call with the Council. The firewood team had been out bright and early, but there wasn’t much hope that they’d find anything dry. They’d woken to find the light rain the night before had turned into sleet and then completely frozen over, alarming Clarke. If it was this cold now in October, what was going to happen in winter?

The snares had worked and had so far brought in a few rabbits. They had gone out early to check them and brought back four rabbits. The smokehouse seemed to be going okay and all the bones and organ meat were still going into the soup. The kudzu leaves were a nice addition to the soup too and were helping to bulk it out.

Monty had found an absolutely motherlode of nuts the day before and a bunch of the kids were busy packaging them into rations for the winter. They still had a decent number of walnuts left, but they were going to need all the help they could get and all the food they could get.

Clarke had a feeling the adults were going to be absolutely useless once they reached the ground. If they reached the ground.

“Tell me about the Grounder,” Jaha said. “Can he provide any insight on how to survive winter.”

“We’re doing everything we can to prepare here,” she said. “We’re gathering nuts and berries, curing meats, digging for roots. But the truth is, we’ll freeze before we starve.” Even if everyone piled in the dropship, they’d only be okay while they were in the dropship. They didn’t have any clothes for winter.

“There’s good news on that front,” Kane said. The image switched over to him. “According to Civil Defense plans from before the war there’s an old emergency aid depot not far from the landing site.” He showed her a map on his tablet. “Here are the coordinates.” It was hard to see on the fuzzy picture, but she managed and jotted them down.

They’d need to send some people to investigate it. The question was, who should go out there? She could go with a team or Bellamy could go, maybe they could take Miller.

_Or we could both go alone_.

“In addition to supplies,” Jaha said and the picture changed again, “it could provide shelter for the 100 and for the citizens coming down from the Ark.”

“And what makes you think it’s intact?”

“It was designed to withstand nuclear warfare,” Kane said.

“Alright. It’s worth a shot,” she said.

“Chancellor,” a voice said, and Clarke recognized it as Diana Sydney right before the image changed to show the former Chancellor. God, that was who they’d gotten to replace her mom? “Project Exodus is under way. The kids should sit tight in their camp until the first dropship launches.”

“Even if everything goes without a hitch, the 100 would die from exposure before relief arrives,” Jaha said. He sat back in his chair. “I’d like a moment with Clarke alone, please. And I know there’s a line of parents waiting to talk to their kids.” Oh God. He wanted to talk about her mother. “Clarke,” he said after a moment. “We all are very proud of what you’ve done down there. Your mother—”

“I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

“Please, Clarke. It’s time to forgive. Let me schedule a time for Abby to sit down—”

“Look. I know you both think that betraying my dad, killing him, was an unavoidable tragedy. But I don’t see it that way and I never will,” she said. “So just tell me who’s next and let someone who actually wants to talk to their parents have a turn.”

When she walked out of the tent a moment later, she had a plan. But first she had to find Dax. He was over by the smokehouse skinning a rabbit. “Dax,” she called once she found him. “You’re up.” After that she went to go hunt down Bellamy. She had a plan.

If she was going to trek through the woods to find a bunker that may or may not have supplies and may or may not become their new home, she wanted him by her side. He wasn’t anywhere _outside_ the dropship, which meant he was probably with Octavia’s soulmate.

He wasn’t, but he was on the first floor of the dropship clearly having just finished an argument with Octavia. “Bellamy,” she said. He looked away from his sister to her.

“The answer’s still no,” he said and started to walk out of the dropship. “I’m not talking to Jaha.”

“Hey, relax,” she said, reaching for his arm. “That’s not why I’m here. The Ark found some old records that show a supply depot not too far from here.”

“What kind of supplies?” he asked.

“The kind that might give us a chance to live through winter. I’m gonna go check it out. I could use backup.”

He glanced over her shoulder to where Octavia sat. “Okay. I’ll get my stuff, meet you in ten.”

She nodded and grabbed her bag before going to check on Finn. Honestly, as long as he didn’t do anything stupid, he’d be fine. She’d been trying to make all her checks with him as short as possible whether or not Raven was in the tent. When Raven was there, things were awkward. When Raven wasn’t there, he kept flirting with her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked as she started to look at his wound.

“Weak. Bored,” he said and winced as she worked. “Grateful to be alive.”

“Well, if you want to stay that way, you should rest,” she told him.

“I’ll tie him down if I have to,” Raven said.

“I’m gonna be out of camp today,” Clarke said, ignoring Finn’s eyes on her as she turned to Raven. “Can you change his bandages in a few hours?”

“Wait, where are you going?” Finn asked.

“It’s a little assignment from the Ark,” she said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s not safe out there,” Finn said quietly.

“Finn, Clarke’s a big girl,” Raven said. “She can take care of herself.”

“And I’m not going alone,” Clarke said right before Bellamy called her name and popped his head in the tent.

“Let’s get a move on.”

Finn didn’t look happy, but when she looked at Raven the other girl was smirking. “Make sure stays in bed,” she told Raven.

“Sounds like a plan,” Raven said.

She and Bellamy headed out of camp and towards the bunker in companionable silence, even if he seemed a bit on edge and tense. She was pretty sure it wasn’t just related to Octavia and her soulmate, but she didn’t know how to bring that up.

When they had almost reached Kane’s coordinates, she brought up the idea of talking to Jaha again. As every other time she’d brought the idea up, he refused.

“Pretty sure you can’t avoid Jaha forever,” she pointed out.

“I can try,” Bellamy said as they crested the ridge to see the area where the bunker was supposed to be. The landscape looked ruined and her heart sank. The bunker might not have survived 97 years after all. For a few minutes once they’d found their way in, she had a bit of hope, but that hope was quickly dashed.

“So much for living down here. This place is disgusting,” she said. “Damn it.”

“Anything left down here is ruined,” Bellamy said as they kept walking.

“They must have distributed most of the supplies before the last bombs went off,” she said, peering in yet another empty barrel. She moved over to a container and flipped the latches to push the lid up. “Hey. I found blankets.”

“You excited about a couple of blankets?” Bellamy asked, sounding frustrated.

“Well it’s something,” she said. Today was really not going according to her plan.

“Well, how about a canteen or a med kit or a decent fucking tent?” He smacked a hand down on a barrel in anger. It didn’t sound empty and he pulled the lid off. She watched as he dipped his fingers in. He stepped back and kicked at the barrel, shouting in frustration.

Today was definitely not going to plan.

The barrel toppled and a dark liquid spilled out, splashing up against the wall. With it came the sound of metal objects hitting the floor. Bellamy moved over and raised his light as she came to his side. His light revealed guns lying in a pool of grease. He picked one up and looked at her, grinning broadly.

“Give me one of those blankets,” he said. “We need to clean them off.”

“We’re not using the blankets,” she said. “We need those. There were scraps in the other room. I’ll be right back.”

With the fabric scraps, Bellamy cleaned off the weapons and took a larger scrap to draw an X on. She realized he meant to use it as a target when he hung it up.

“This changes everything!” he said excitedly. “No more running from spears. Ready to be a badass, Clarke?”

“Look, I’m not gonna fight you on bringing guns back to camp. I know we need them, but don’t expect me to like it.”

“We’re lucky the rifles were packed in grease,” he said. “The fact that they survived means we’re not sitting ducks anymore. You _need_ to learn how to do this.”

She sighed and stepped forward, holding the gun up. It was unwieldy, heavy, and felt weird to hold. “So, I just hold it on my shoulder?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just a little higher now.” He stepped behind her and put his arms around her, bracing the gun in the right position for her. “Yeah, uh, that’s good. Don’t pull the trigger, just squeeze it. It’s gonna kick back against you.” He stayed there as she looked down the sight and squeezed.

She completely missed the X on the fabric and the kick pushed her shoulder into Bellamy, but that…that was something. She turned, still pressed close against him, and said, “That was amazing!” He grinned at her. “Am I horrible for feeling that?”

“No,” he said, gaze dropping to her lips. “Try again.”

“No, we shouldn’t waste the ammunition.”

“You need to practice,” he said softly.

_I could practice kissing you_ she thought. “No, we need to talk about how we’re gonna keep guns around camp.” He stepped away from her, leaving her feeling cold. He picked up one of the other guns. “Where are we gonna keep them and who has access?”

Bellamy raised the gun and fired, hitting much closer to the X than she had. “You left Miller in charge of the Grounder,” she continued. “You must trust him with more than just the camp.”

He didn’t look at her. “You should keep him close,” he said. “The others listen to him.”

Why did that matter? Miller and the others listened to _Bellamy_. “ _I_ should keep him close?” she asked, moving so he had to look at her. “Bellamy, what’s going on? You’ve been acting weird all day.” He looked away from her and she followed his gaze to his pack. Suddenly she understood. “All the rations you took. You’re gonna run.” When she looked back at him, he looked defeated. “ _That’s_ why you agreed to come with me. You were going to load up on supplies and just disappear.” She stepped back from him, hurt and feeling cold.

They’d been growing closer over the last week, both as leaders and through the connection they shared. And it seemed like he knew they shared that stupid fruit, but he was just going to abandon everyone, abandon _her_. “I thought you—”

It didn’t matter what she thought. Not when he so obviously didn’t care.

“I don’t have a choice,” he said, voice breaking even as he looked away from her. “The Ark will be here soon.”

“So, you’re just going to leave Octavia?” she asked instead of all the other things she wanted to.

“Octavia hates me. She’ll be fine,” Bellamy said.

“You don’t know what—”

“I shot the Chancellor,” Bellamy said, voice cracking. “They’re gonna kill me, Clarke. Best case scenario they lock me up with the Grounder for the rest of my life, and there’s no way in hell I’m giving Jaha the satisfaction.”

“I won’t let them. _We_ won’t let them. I keep telling you that. Why won’t you believe me?”

“I don’t doubt that you’ll try,” Bellamy said, looking defeated. “But you can’t. You can’t save me from this. Just…keep practicing. I need some air.”

“Bellamy, don’t,” she started.

“I won’t leave without letting you know, okay?” he threw over his shoulder as he walked away.

She sighed and watched him go. He was going to leave unless she found a way to stop him. Octavia wouldn’t be fine if he left, no matter what he thought. She wasn’t going to be fine either. She couldn’t lead the delinquents on her own. They listened to him. While they’d only known each other for two weeks and she’d only known about the whole soulmate thing for half as much time, she didn’t hate him anymore. Things had changed drastically over those two weeks. She didn’t love him, but there was something growing between them. He was her soulmate. He’d found the sketchbook and brought her flowers just because they were pretty.

If he’d left the camp before she knew she probably would have been fine even if the camp might not have been. But if he left now…

She didn’t realize she was hallucinating until after the fact, but the hallucinations hurt. Seeing her dad hurt and what he – or rather her subconscious – said hurt. She didn’t want to talk about her mother with him, not when she was the reason he was dead. She didn’t want to forgive her mother, didn’t think she ever could.

It didn’t make sense that her dad called her a crazy bitch, but when she woke up, her mind was clearer. She’d been hit on the back of the head, which meant someone else was there with them. If she’d been hallucinating, then Bellamy probably was too. And if someone attacked her, then Bellamy was also in danger.

As she raced to the exit, she started to hear sounds of fighting. She’d expected Grounders, not Dax. But as soon as she saw him trying to kill Bellamy, all she could think of was to save Bellamy. She wasn’t of much use during the fight, honestly, between the bullets being duds and then the blow to her stomach and chest. But Bellamy killed Dax and crawled towards where she was at the base of a tree, a desperate look in his eyes.

“You’re okay,” she panted with bone crushing relief and tears in her eyes, raising a hand to the side of his face as he collapsed next to her. She needed to touch him to know that he was alright, that he was here. He settled next to her, legs tangling with her own and hands reaching for her. “You’re okay.”

“No, I’m not,” he said with a trembling voice. She immediately began scanning him and patting him down to see where he was hurt. He grabbed her hands and held them in his own, making her meet his gaze. His pupils were fully dilated and there was a scrape across the bridge of his nose. “My mother…If she knew what I’ve done.” His eyes welled up with tears. “Who I am – she raised me to be better, to be good. And all I do is hurt people. I’m a monster.”

“Hey, you saved my life today. And not for the first time. You may be a total ass half of the time, but I need you. I can’t do this without you.” She pulled one of her hands from his grasp and cupped his cheek again, sliding it back so her thumb was behind his ear, touching the little pomegranate that rested there. She still hadn’t seen it yet. His eyes slid shut at the touch. “None of us would’ve survived without you. You can’t run. You have to come back with me. Please.” She paused. “We’re a team. Isn’t that what this means? To have this?” she asked, pressing down on the mark.

Bellamy let out a watery sigh and opened his eyes, his grasp on her other hand tightening.

“All I think about every day is how we’re going to keep everyone alive. I can’t do this without you. I don’t _want_ to do this without you. Please come back with me,” she continued, voice breaking.

“Jaha will kill me when he comes down,” Bellamy said miserably. “Shumway gave me the gun. Kill Jaha and he’d get me on the ship. But your mom found me.”

“What?” Clarke asked, startled more at the mention of her mother than the idea that Shumway had been involved. She’d never liked him.

“Your mom, she found me after I shot Jaha, but before I made it to the ship. I was terrified that she knew what I’d done. But she told me about the plan to send you all down. She knew about Octavia obviously, but somehow, she’d seen my mark at some point too. She told me about you and about your mark. I hated you so much in the beginning.” He sighed.

“It’s been two weeks,” Clarke said wryly. “But I understand. We’ll figure something out, about Jaha, I promise.”

“Can we figure it out later?” Bellamy asked, tucking her into his side more comfortably.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Clarke said, resting her head on his chest. A few moments passed and she said, “This, us. It’s not a magic fix. But I want it to work.”

“I know,” he said and pressed a kiss to her hair. “Me too. I don’t actually hate you.”

“I don’t hate you either. And you brought me flowers.”

“If I’d known that was all it took, I would’ve tried it sooner,” he said. “Though I thought the sketchbook was going to be the big winner.”

“Oh, it was.”

Eventually they caught their breath and she stopped feeling so winded. Neither of them said anything for a while after that and instead shifted closer so she was resting against his chest rather than nestled into his side. But before they’d sat there for too long, they headed back into the bunker.

“Should we wait for daylight before we go back?” she asked. “I don’t really want to stay here overnight, but if it’s safer we should.”

“No, it’s best if we go now. We have the guns,” Bellamy said. “We’ll take what we can and send others for the rest tomorrow. We should also warn the others not to eat the nuts anymore.”

“Shumway told you to kill Jaha,” she said. “He’s pretty high in the guard.”

“Bet Jaha would like to know that,” Bellamy murmured, peering over her shoulder into another bin. He stood closer than he would have only an hour before, a hand warm on her hip.

She blamed the proximity for why it took her a minute to think through what Bellamy said. Jaha didn’t know Bellamy had been _told_ to kill him. She gasped and spun around, pressed against Bellamy. “Jaha doesn’t know,” she said. “You just said it, Jaha would want to know _why_ you tried to kill him.”

“What?” he asked, seemingly distracted by her as well. “Wait, you think I can get a pardon if I tell Jaha that someone ordered me to kill him?”

“Shumway’s a high-ranking member of the guard,” Clarke said.

“And he ordered me to kill Jaha. I mean, I don’t care, but he’s still at risk every single day up there,” Bellamy said.

Clarke grinned up at him and looped her arms around his neck. “You’re gonna get a pardon.” As he wrapped his hands around her waist she raised on her toes, intent on kissing him.

Instead, he tugged her back down. “We don’t have time for this.” She frowned at him, confused. “We’ve got to get back to the others. And when I kiss you for the first time, we’re going to need time.” He squeezed her and stepped back. “We’ll bring back as many guns and as much ammo as we can. And then we can… _talk_.”

They carried the guns and dragged the bullets and blankets back to camp, which took forever. Still, it was a much better trip back to the camp compared to the journey out. They both knew about their soulmarks, Bellamy had basically implied that they were going to make out when they got back, and he wasn’t planning on leaving once they reached their destination.

As they arrived at the gate – both open and unguarded which there would be a talk about – they heard Miller shout that the Grounder was gone.

“What if he brings other Grounders back?” Jasper asked.

“He’ll kill us!”

“Or worse!”

“Let the Grounders come,” Bellamy said as they walked into the group. Finn was standing – despite orders of bedrest – on the other side. “We’ve been afraid of them for far too long, and why? Because of their knives and spears? I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being afraid.” He looked to her and they dropped their bundles of guns to the ground.

From the crowd they could hear murmurs of approval. Finn looked decidedly displeased.

“These are weapons, not toys,” she told the group. “And we have to be prepared to give them up to the Guard when the dropships come. But until then, they’re gonna help keep us safe.”

“And there are plenty more where these come from,” Bellamy added. “Tomorrow we start training. And if the Grounders come, we’re gonna be ready to fight.”

Bellamy called Miller over to take control of the guns and the group broke up. As she headed for the communications tent, she wondered how exactly they got so lucky with who had been in the Skybox. She had medical training, Miller had been a cadet, Jasper and Monty had engineering _and_ agro training, Terra and now Raven had mechanical training, and Finn far surpassed any expectations she had about practical Earth Skills tracking and hunting experience. Finn did try to get her attention as she made her way to the tent, but she brushed him off. She’d have to deal with him eventually, but that was for later. Preferably after she’d slept later. He shouldn’t even have been vertical yet given his injury.

Jaha wasn’t exactly happy to be woken up and it took a while to get him to agree to the meeting, but once he did, she exited the tent to go find Bellamy. He was over by the wall with Octavia. Clarke called him over, but he paused a couple of steps away from Octavia.

“The Grounder escaping,” he asked. “Was that you?” Clarke couldn’t hear the response, but when he reached her, he said, “She says she didn’t do it.”

“But he’s her soulmate. Come on,” Clarke said, turning to the tent. “Let’s get you pardoned.”

When Jaha paused after Bellamy revealed that he’d been acting on orders from someone else, Clarke grasped his hand tightly. When Jaha spoke again and pardoned Bellamy, a wave of relief went through her. Once Bellamy explained everything about Shumway and the plan – though he curiously left her mother out – and the transmission ended, Bellamy led Clarke by the hand around to the back of the dropship.

Nobody really went back there since it was practically against the first wall they’d constructed and they’d never taken it down once the second, better wall went up. As expected, it was deserted and quiet back there. And dark.

“You did it,” he said.

“ _You_ did it,” Clarke said. “You’re the one who came up with the idea to tell Jaha about Shumway.”

“You convinced me to come back,” Bellamy said. “To stay and not run.” He paused. “Can I see it?” he asked quietly.

“There’s hardly any light back here,” Clarke protested, even as she started to pull the side of her pants down. Bellamy leaned back from her and squinted in the dim light before smiling softly. He pressed a thumb to the mark. Clarke had wondered if it would feel different when her soulmate touched her mark. If sparks would fizzle along her spine or something like in the storybooks. In reality, it only felt different because it was Bellamy’s callused thumb stroking over her skin.

“Do you know what it is?” he asked, voice low.

“A pomegranate. I had to look it up. But Octavia said something about Greek mythology. Hades and Persephone.”

“I’ll tell you the story later,” Bellamy said, leaning in.

“Later?” she asked, sounding more breathless than she’d like.

“Later,” he repeated and leaned down all the way to kiss her. She’d been anticipating this for what seemed like forever, not just the couple hours since he’d promised it. He kissed her softly first, a dry press of chapped lips against chapped lips. He pulled back slightly, almost hesitantly, but his gaze was heavy. “Hey, this okay?”

“More than,” she said and tangled fingers into the hair at his nape. She’d been dying to get her hands in his hair for days and days. Maybe ever since she’d first seen it loose and curling on that second day.

He kissed her again and pressed closer, feet bumping into her own. The hand that wasn’t pressing into her mark curled into her own hair. He wasn’t her first kiss – Finn hadn’t been either – but she didn’t have a ton of experience with kissing. She’d half anticipated that the kiss would become heated and she’d get her hands on Bellamy’s ass, which technically she could do regardless, but the kiss was soft and patient, even when he licked into her mouth. He made quiet little noises as they kissed, echoed by her own sighs and whimpers.

It was heady, kissing Bellamy. He was warm, pressed all along her front, and she felt safe pressed between his body and the dropship. She didn’t know how long it had been when she heard it, but there was a burst of laughter and Bellamy pulled back, looking towards the path between the dropship and the wall. There wasn’t anyone there, but he was tense.

Did he not want people to know about them?

He turned back to her and smiled softly at her. “We should actually sleep tonight. Even though I’m very tempted to stay here.” He leaned down and kissed her again but pulled back far too soon for Clarke’s liking. “Miller and I will go to the bunker tomorrow. Or later today.”

“You gonna come back after?” she asked, but she wasn’t concerned about it.

“Mmhmm,” he said. “Got you to come back to.”

The next morning when she was checking on Finn’s wound, he took the opportunity as soon as Raven left the tent to criticize her. “Guns? Really?” he asked when Raven had barely stepped out of the tent.

“The Grounder escaping, we have to expect retaliation. We have to be prepared.”

“Yeah. Our ancestors wanted to be prepared too,” Finn said. “So they built bombs.”

“Rifles are not the same as nukes,” she said firmly.

“In Bellamy’s hands they are. Clarke, come on. You can’t predict what he’s gonna do.”

“There’s no perfect answer, Finn,” she said. Guns weren’t a perfect solution, but they would help. Even if they didn’t help with the Grounders, they had to help with hunting and they definitely needed the meat and pelts for winter if they wanted to survive.

“The Grounder saved Octavia’s life, and Bellamy brought him back here and was going to torture him,” Finn said.

“If he hadn’t done that, you’d be dead,” Clarke said. “I trust him.”

“Is this because you’re sleeping together?” Finn asked, eyes accusing. “I thought we had something, Clarke. But you just gave up on us and jumped straight into his bed, didn’t you?”

“What?” Clarke asked, stunned.

“I saw you two last night,” Finn said, frowning. “He’s not a good guy, Clarke.”

“That is none of your business.”

“Clarke –”

“No, you do not get to talk to me about Bellamy and last night. You tried to sleep with me while you never mentioned Raven once. You do not get to talk about any of this.” There was a rustle behind them, and Raven appeared. “He’s fine,” Clarke said flatly and left.

She stormed off to look for Bellamy. “Can I talk to you for a second?” She didn’t bother to wait for an answer and instead dragged him away from Miller, Drew, and Connor.

She pulled him far enough away that no one could hear them, but people could still see them. She didn’t exactly want to drag him out of sight during the daylight given what Finn had said. She and Bellamy hadn’t had a conversation about the whole soulmates thing and if he wanted other people to know. She wanted people to know because she didn’t want to have to hide when they kissed. It had been fun and exciting the night before, but she felt after a while it was going to be less fun if that was the only time they could kiss.

“And good morning to you too,” Bellamy said with a smirk.

“Finn saw us last night,” Clarke said and crossed her arms over her chest. “He thinks we’re sleeping together. He’s mad.”

“No, he’s jealous because you’re not sleeping with him,” Bellamy said, though the smirk faded until he was all but expressionless. “Do you think he’ll tell anyone?”

“He might,” Clarke said, looking around. “He thinks I ran to you as soon as Raven came down. Which is ridiculous because I’ve known about you since right after we got Jasper the seaweed.”

“You’ve known for that long?” Bellamy asked, surprised. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Your sister saw the mark. And you were kind of an asshole,” Clarke said. “And then everything with Wells and Charlotte and Murphy and…I don’t know. It was kind of scary to think about.” She shrugged. “I mean, I regret not saying something earlier, but you could have said something too. You knew from before we even landed.”

He sighed. “Yeah. I did. Do you care if Finn knows?”

“No, everyone’s going to know eventually. And I was going to tell Octavia today since she already knows. He’s – I don’t even know where he got the idea that he gets to feel mad. He had a girlfriend on the Ark and didn’t say anything about her even when he was flirting with me and trying to get me to sleep with him.”

“He tried to sleep with you?” Bellamy asked, clearly trying to sound neutral, but he looked jealous.

“I didn’t,” she said. “It was the night Raven’s pod crashed. I kissed him and felt absolutely nothing. Unlike when I kissed you last night.” Bellamy smirked. “I dragged him back here to sleep and you know the rest. He’s also mad about the guns. I don’t care if he tells people, I just don’t like the way he’d make it sound about how we got together.”

“Fuck him,” Bellamy shrugged. “Metaphorically. Do you want to tell people? Now, I mean. Cause you did say everyone would know eventually.”

She bit her lip and looked away, thinking. She didn’t care if everyone knew. Some people in camp wouldn’t like it, but she didn’t care about that. “Unless Finn starts telling people,” she said, looking back at Bellamy, “we keep it to ourselves for three more days. Or if we get caught before then. I mean, you brought me flowers. People have an idea that we maybe don’t actually hate each other.”

“Unity Day’s in four days,” he said.

“Exactly. We get to sneak around and if we get caught, then we get caught. But if we don’t, everyone here’s going to get drunk and dance. And I know you’ve decided to be on watch all night, but I’m going to find you at some point and we’re going to make your sister want to throw up.” Bellamy grinned wickedly at her, but it faded.

“I think she let him go,” Bellamy said. “The Grounder, I mean. I don’t know what to do about that.”

“He is her soulmate. Maybe she couldn’t stand to see him hurt anymore,” Clarke said, shrugging. “I’d feel the same if it was you.”

“I couldn’t let you drop into that beast pit even though I told Murphy earlier that day that we were going to kill you and Wells. When the panther attacked, I could only think about keeping you safe. I didn’t even like you then. And when Murphy had that knife to your throat…” He trailed off, looking at her throat. Clarke wasn’t surprised that he’d wanted to kill her and Wells. It had been very much Us vs. Them at the time. “I wasn’t going to let him kill you in front of me.”

“Hey, are we going to that bunker or what?” Miller called. Bellamy glanced over at him and then looked back to Clarke.

“Three days,” Bellamy said and never had two words sounded like such a promise and a threat at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have rewritten and reread the scene underneath the tree so many times. Also I've learned writing kissing scenes are harder than writing sex scenes?


	11. Chapter 11

While Bellamy and the others were heading off to the bunker Clarke cornered Octavia by dragging her off to an unoccupied part of the camp. “What?” Octavia asked, shaking Clarke’s hand off. “You don’t need to drag me off if you want to talk to me.”

“Your brother has known I’m his soulmate since before he got in the dropship,” Clarke said.

“He _what_?” Octavia asked, then shook her head. “How do you know that?”

“Long story short, there was flirting, the hallucinogenic nuts kicked in, and Dax tried to kill Bellamy,” Clarke said.

“Dax tried to kill Bell?” Octavia hissed. “Where is he?”

“Dead. He followed us to the bunker to kill Bellamy,” Clarke said. “Bellamy killed him after all my bullets wound up being duds. The point is, he was freaking out because he thought Jaha was going to kill him as soon as the rest of the Ark comes down.”

“They’re not, we’re not going to let them,” Octavia said.

“He’s been pardoned. That’s what we were doing last night. Shumway ordered Bellamy to kill Jaha. Bellamy told him that,” Clarke said. “Anyways, the point is, my mom got him on the dropship, not Shumway, and she told him we’re soulmates. He’s known the whole time.”

“You still haven’t explained how you know that,” Octavia said.

“He said he was going to run before the hallucinations kicked in. After Dax and we were coming down from them, I told him he couldn’t leave and that I knew. He then explained the rest,” Clarke said. “And when we got back, we, uh, we kissed.” _A lot_ she thought to herself.

“I don’t need to know anything about that, and I don’t want to,” Octavia said. “But I’m – I’m okay with it. Extremely pissed with him that he’s known about you the whole time, but he was willing to torture _my_ soulmate, but that’s not about you, that’s about him being my stupid overprotective big brother.”

When Bellamy and the others returned to camp with more guns, bullets, and a couple of totes of blankets in tow, Octavia punched him in the arm and stalked off. His gaze found Clarke and he looked at her in confusion. She shrugged and very pointedly wandered towards the back of the dropship. She heard him call out that Miller was in charge and found his way to the back of the dropship only a few minutes after her.

“Finn bother you today?” he asked, crowding her against the hull.

“Not after this morning. To be fair, I haven’t gone to check on him since then,” she said and leaned up to kiss him. He smiled into it and tugged her close with a hand on her waist and one on her shoulder. He pulled back after a few minutes and slid his hand from her shoulder to tangle his fingers with hers. He looked slightly bashful at it, but she drew her hand from his hair to rest on his chest. “You find anything interesting at the depot?”

“Nothing that we didn’t find last night, just more of it,” he said. “You tell Octavia?”

“She’s mad at you, but she doesn’t hate you,” Clarke said, squeezing his hand. “And she’s fine with _us_. She probably punched you because I told her you were planning on leaving.”

He winced. “Yeah, I probably deserved that.”

She ran her hand down his chest to his waist and felt something in his jacket pocket brush against her hand. There was something that filled the pocket and rounded it out. “You said you didn’t find anything,” she said.

“Well, we didn’t find it at the depot,” he said and reached into his pocket to pull something round and a greeny-red out. He held it out to her, and she gasped. “Monty’s the one who noticed the apple tree on our way back.”

“You found fruit,” she said in delight as she held the apple in her hands.

“They’re a little tart, but we brought a whole bag of them back,” Bellamy said. “There were a couple of trees and we grabbed all the apples.”

“Maybe we could figure out how to dry them, to store them for the winter,” she said, thoughts racing. They hadn’t found any other fruits yet, but if they could dry the apples out, then they’d have something else for the winter.

“Or we could just eat them now,” Bellamy said. “This one’s for you.”

“Bellamy, we need to save these,” she said, but she did want to try it.

“Everyone that went out had one and I specifically saved this one for you,” he said. “We’re the leaders, we get first dibs.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how it works,” she said, but she took a bite from the apple. It was certainly tart, but it was good, the juice flooding her mouth. “Raven and Jasper think they can check the bullets, see if they’re duds. He thinks he knows how to make gunpowder too.”

“That’s good,” Bellamy said. “Anything else interesting happen today?”

“Nope, but something did occur to me,” she said. “You’ve seen my mark, but I still haven’t seen yours.” She took another bite of the apple and was very aware of the hand on her waist shifting down so his thumb could slip under her waistband to settle over her mark.

“I haven’t seen your mark in actual light,” Bellamy said.

“Yours first,” Clarke said. Bellamy turned his head slightly and pressed his earlobe forward.

There, right behind his earlobe and partially covered by his hair, was the same thumb nail sized pomegranate that he was currently pressing against on her hip. She hadn’t worried that it wouldn’t be there or that it would look different from her own, but there was a deep sense of relief that flowed through her none the less. There in clear lines of deep red was proof that they belonged to one another. She reached up and as she traced a finger over it, he shivered.

She pulled back and shifted the waistband of her pants down past his thumb. He looked down and didn’t move his thumb for a few seconds. Once he did, he stared down at it and smiled. “You wanna see if we can get caught?”

“Absolutely,” she said and surged forward to kiss him, the apple falling to the ground forgotten.

Over the next three days Bellamy took every opportunity he could to pull her aside and into shadows and unoccupied spaces to kiss her. Sometimes for only a moment before someone would walk near and they’d separate. Other times he’d press her up against something and they’d kiss until someone came near or called out for them. Once when she was in the dropship alone, he snuck in behind her and instead of kissing her, blew a raspberry on the back of her neck. It was both unexpected and made her giggle, something Bellamy seemed to delight in. “You don’t laugh enough,” was his shrugged response when she asked why he’d done it. He then pressed her in between the wall of the dropship and one of the struts supporting the roof, caging her in with his body to kiss her nearly senseless.

It certainly made all their work together in public difficult. They had training rotations and duty rosters to fill out, plans to prevent hypothermia as winter approached and the nights grew colder. There were a few suggestions he muttered under his breath to solve that particular problem that had her blushing, but it wasn’t like she _hadn’t_ thought about sharing a bed with him before. And while it was a “practical” solution for the two of them, shoving a bunch of kids in a tent or in the dropship to conserve body heat wasn’t going to work for long. They could technically fit that many sleeping people in the dropship once the temperature dropped too low for parachute and tarp tents, but it would be a tight fit given how they were using the first and second floors as storage.

Clarke herself took every opportunity possible to avoid Finn, or at the very least avoid being alone with Finn. The fact that she couldn’t keep him on bedrest after Bellamy went back to the bunker certainly didn’t help matters. Finn wanted to talk about Bellamy, about the guns, and about the status of their non relationship, none of which she particularly wanted to do. It made her sad, how their friendship had seemed to have completely vanished. She didn’t particularly want to be friends with this version of Finn, but she did miss the non-flirtatious part of the previous relationship. She just didn’t know if there was anything that could be salvaged.

The night before Unity Day Bellamy pulled her around behind the dropship again, and she giggled as they stumbled back there, kissing her as soon as they were out of sight of the others. Bellamy pressed her back against the wall of the ship in the darkest corner and she let out a yelp and arched towards him. “What?” he asked, concerned.

“It’s cold,” she said. “And this ship is cold, and you shoved my shirt up. Why do we keep doing this outside?”

“Or,” Bellamy said, and flipped them around so that he was pressed up against the hull and she was pressed against him, “we could try this.”

“I think I can work with this,” Clarke said and leaned into him. “Though we are going to need to rethink this outdoor thing before too much longer.”

“Well I do have a tent all my own,” Bellamy said and slipped her pants down just enough that he could get his thumb on her mark. Any time he had a chance to do so, his thumb was down the side of her pants, pressing down. “And it’s plenty warm in there.”

“I’ll think about it,” Clarke said, but she had a feeling they’d probably be sharing a tent before too much longer even if they didn’t have sex. Bellamy pulled her close and grinned into the kiss.

At some point later, when she had her hands in his hair he murmured, “I think Monty knows,” into her neck. “He keeps winking at me.”

“Well, you weren’t entirely subtle last night,” Clarke murmured back. After dinner and some of Monty’s moonshine, Octavia had begged her brother to tell them a story. Clarke was pretty sure it was a contrived question since Octavia winked at her after asking. Some of the older teens had scoffed, but others had come to sit around the fire. Bellamy sat down on the benches directly opposite Clarke and had spent almost the entire time staring directly at her through the fire. The flames flickered and reflected in his dark, intense gaze as his promise of ‘later’ came to be.

Ostensibly, he was telling the story to everyone at Octavia’s request. But Octavia slunk off and Bellamy only kept eye contact with her. He spoke of an ancient god of the underworld falling in love with the daughter of the goddess of the harvest. Of how he loved her without her knowing. A god who stole his love away, brought her down to his home. A goddess who fell in love with a kind man who ruled in darkness so opposite to her mother’s world. And a mother so desperate for her daughter to return that she demanded the ground lay barren. A daughter, when forced to leave her love and return to her mother, made a choice to eat the seeds of a pomegranate and split her time between the two worlds. To stay with the man she loved who loved her in return.

It had been…something…to have all of that attention and focus directed at her. Even surrounded by other people, it felt like they were the only ones there. After he finished the story, Bellamy had taken one last slug of moonshine and strode off. It had taken all of her willpower not to bolt after him and give the whole thing up.

“I’m not sorry about it,” Bellamy said. “In case you’re wondering.”

“I figured you weren’t.”

That night she didn’t actually toss and turn because the ground was hard, she was in a tent with eight other people, and she was lying close enough to Monty that she could feel the heat from his body. That was the whole reason everyone had moved into tents as a group. But she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about Unity Day and what was coming afterwards. The Exodus ship was coming with her mother on board. Her mother knew Bellamy was her soulmate, but what if she didn’t like that they were together? Her mom hadn’t known he’d shot Jaha when she snuck him on the dropship. What if it was like Demeter demanding her daughter be returned to her? And _she_ wasn’t happy with her mother. Things couldn’t go back to the way they had been before Jake Griffin had been murdered, they couldn’t. Not with what she knew and how much had changed.

After staring at the parachute ceiling for what felt like an hour she gave up and sat up. Maybe a lap around the camp would help settle her mind. As she crawled out of their tent, careful to make as little noise as possible, Monty whispered, “Have fun.”

“Shut up,” she hissed back at him.

She really had planned on doing a lap of the camp, but she saw faint lantern light coming from Bellamy’s tent.

“Bellamy?” she asked quietly just outside the makeshift entrance.

“Clarke?” he asked and after a few seconds of rustling the fabric parted. “What’s wrong?”

“I, uh,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward. “I can’t sleep.”

“Come on,” he said and stepped back to let her in. His tent was chilly without anyone else’s body heat to warm up the large space. His bed had acquired some new furs since she’d seen it last though. His decision of “You killed it, you keep the fur” definitely had its perks. She stood awkwardly in the center of the tent. “Is everything alright?” He paused. “Are you nervous about tomorrow? We don’t have to—”

“No,” Clarke said quickly, stepping towards him, reaching for him. “No, I want to let everyone know. I do. It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” he asked.

“The first of the Exodus ships comes down in less than three days,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Is this about your mom?”

“Yes,” Clarke said. “No.” She looked away and then back at him. “I like the way things are now. Mostly.”

“You’re worried they’re going to reinstate the same rules as the Ark,” he said.

“Aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure what we can do about it other than leave,” he said.

“Well there’s that,” she said. “We could do that. I don’t – I miss my mom, but I hate her too. And I don’t think I can live with her again.”

“You can live with me,” he said earnestly and looked surprised after the words came out of his mouth. She smiled at him and tugged his head down to kiss him. His hands went to her hips and held her close.

“I like that,” she said when she pulled back. “We’ll need them against the Grounders, but I don’t think we’ll be able to live with them. They don’t – we can’t go back to living like we did on the Ark.”

“We’ll leave that in our back pocket as a fall back idea,” he said. “They said we’ve been pardoned, but who knows how long that’s going to last.”

“We’ll have to figure out about other kids’ parents,” Clarke sighed and gave into the urge to wrap her arms around his waist and rest her head on his chest. He chuckled and rested his cheek on her head. “I do want to stay with you though, no matter what happens.”

“I think we can manage that,” he said.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” she asked, glad that he couldn’t see her face. “I don’t—I can’t sleep, and I’d rather be here and not able to sleep than not be able to sleep next to Monty.”

“I’d rather have you not sleep next to me over Monty too,” Bellamy said. He pulled back just enough to see her. “Come on, you can keep me warm.”

“How have you not frozen to death in your sleep yet?” she asked as he drew her to the bed.

He sat on the edge, pulling her down next to him, and loosened the laces of his boots, pulling them off and setting them to the side. “Just lucky I guess,” he shrugged.

Clarke shucked her boots too. She hadn’t slept without them while on Earth and the idea was a little weird. But if Bellamy wasn’t going to, she wasn’t either. Bellamy turned the lantern off and scooted back on the bed and left space for her. She lay down on her back under the blankets and furs. The bed was cold, but it wasn’t as cold as the tents were before everyone got in them at night. Bellamy was also laying on his back and she could feel the space between them.

This wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. She rolled over onto her side to face him. She couldn’t see him well in the darkness, but she knew where the general shape of him was. “I like it when you touch me,” she blurted, and then immediately felt grateful for the cover of darkness when she felt her cheeks heat.

“What?” Bellamy asked, sounding confused.

She groaned. “I like it when you touch me,” she repeated, but mumbled it. “It’s not about sex,” she said and lay back down. “It’s – I was in solitary.”

Bellamy shifted and somehow managed to tug and push her simultaneously so that her back was to his chest and one of his arms held her tightly to him. “I get it,” he said quietly. “Nobody really touched me for a year either.” The arm around her waist shifted and his hand slid up her shirt, stopping before it reached her breasts.

“After we traumatize your sister by making out tomorrow, I’m okay with you touching me in public. I mean, only if you’re okay with it.” His thumb stroked her skin and he tucked his head against hers. “The bunker was supposed to be a date,” she sighed and placed her hand on his.

“A date?” he asked.

“Kane told me about the bunker, and you were the only person I could think of taking. I wanted to spend time with you.”

“You could’ve told me it was a date,” he said.

“You were planning on leaving. I don’t think telling you would have made a difference,” she said and tried not to sound bitter.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was – I _am_ scared. I didn’t think I’d get a pardon and I don’t know what’ll happen when they get down here.”

“I’ll fight them if they try to undo it,” she said. “But it hurt. You acted like you knew, between the way you kept staring at me, and you hugged me and you gave me presents and then there was that conversation about how Finn was never going to see it.”

“He better not given where it is,” Bellamy said, and his fingers moved down to press against her mark. “I didn’t want to leave you. But I thought you’d be better off without me. I was going to ask you to come with me before Dax tried to kill us.”

Clarke didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if she’d have gone with him or knocked him out and dragged him back to camp with her.

“I’m not better off without you,” she finally said. “We’re better together.”

Unity Day dawned bright and cold, no clouds to be seen. She hadn’t felt particularly cold when she woke up given that she’d woken with Bellamy splayed on top of her, pressing her into the mattress. Neither of them were wearing jackets when she woke and she felt slightly sticky with sweat from their combined body heat under the blankets and furs. She had no idea if they’d each taken their own jackets off or one of them had taken both off in the night. She couldn’t remember taking anything off, but it was possible. Bellamy was still asleep where he lay tucked under her arm, using her shoulder as a pillow. He was essentially lying half on top of her, one leg between hers and his hand resting on her side under her shirt.

She smiled and lifted a hand to run her fingers through his hair. He hummed and nuzzled into her shoulder. Her heart did a funny flip and she pressed her lips to his forehead. Who would have thought that Bellamy Blake was a secret cuddler? He seemed to wake up, a grumble in his throat as he ran his hand down her side.

“Morning,” he mumbled, but didn’t move off of her.

“You cuddle all your bed partners like this?” she asked.

“Never spent the night with anyone before,” he said. “Couldn’t risk it with Octavia and afterwards nobody would even look at me. Didn’t have sex with that many people on the Ark anyways. Don’t know why everyone here thinks I did.”

“You’re hot,” Clarke said, though the revelation that she was the first person he’d actually slept with filled her with warmth. “And I might have overheard Bree saying that you looked like you’d know what to do.” Clarke had privately agreed with her and was looking forward to finding out if it was true. She didn’t care if it wasn’t, because it wasn’t like she knew what she was doing when it came to sex. If they had to figure it out together, so be it. She had a feeling sex with Bellamy was going to be good regardless of how experienced or inexperienced either of them were. They hadn’t even made it past making out yet and she’d never felt the way she did when he was kissing her.

“ _I’m_ hot,” Bellamy chuckled. “You’re hot. And I’m not going to sleep with Bree. Or anyone that isn’t in this tent right now.” He shifted a little and seemed content to continue to lay on her rather than get up and start the day.

She settled into the bed, comforted by the heavy press of his body against hers and continued to run her fingers through his hair, combing out the tangles from sleeping.

Eventually, though, they did actually have to get up and face the day. By unspoken mutual agreement, they left Bellamy’s tent at the same time. She half expected someone to jump out and point at them, but nobody was paying attention. They split up, him heading off to check with the night guards and her heading to check with Raven that everything was set up for the Unity Day celebrations on the tech front.

Some of the 100 weren’t pleased about Unity Day – Octavia and Bellamy in particular given what had happened the previous year – but everyone was looking forward to Monty’s moonshine and an excuse to let loose and have fun. Once Jaha’s speech and the pageant were done, Raven was going to turn off the video feed and turn on the music from the devices they’d found in the bunker. There was going to be drinking, drinking games, and dancing. They were going to be teenagers without adult oversight – Bellamy didn’t even remotely count as an adult in this situation – for one of the last times before people from the Ark started coming down. Clarke was looking forward to the Unity Day celebrations only as far as it meant she was going to make out with Bellamy later.

When Jaha started his broadcast and speech about Unity Day, only some of the kids stood nearby to watch. Most of the others were either preparing for the actual fun part of the day or waiting for it to start. Clarke wandered out of the dropship to find Finn standing on the ramp watching the broadcast from afar.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like Unity Day,” she said.

“Unity Day is a lie,” Finn said. “The Ark only came together after the thirteenth station was blown out of the sky. It’s just not the version of history we like to tell each other at parties.”

“Well, the Unity Day story gives people hope though,” Clarke said. “And peace came out of that violence.”

Finn looked down briefly before looking back up at her. “Yeah, but did there need to be violence at all?”

She didn’t have an answer for that, and it was clearly a partial dig at Bellamy. When she looked back over at those watching the broadcast, Raven was looking over at the two of them. Clarke smiled at her and headed off the ramp just as Jasper came out of his and Monty’s tent with a bucket of moonshine.

Clarke grabbed herself a cup and another, wandering over to Bellamy whose watch had only just started. “Want some ‘Unity Juice?’” she asked, holding the spare out.

“That is an incredibly dumb name,” he said, taking the cup from her. “We still on for later?”

“Absolutely,” she said with a grin. “Unless you want to back out.”

“Not a chance,” Bellamy said.

The comms went down during the pageant and Raven did try to connect back, but before long music was pounding out of the speakers, a combination of songs they knew and songs they didn’t. And a lot of Disney music, which sort of made sense given the children in the photo she’d found. The kids quickly started drinking and playing drinking games. As it got darker people started dancing and whoever was in charge of the music shifted away from Disney and towards songs with thumping beats. Some of the dancing was decidedly less public friendly, but Clarke just smiled. She was still worried about Grounders even if the party wasn’t that much more obvious than the presence was.

Clarke could feel Bellamy’s eyes on her everywhere she went, which completely negated his choice of being on guard duty. She didn’t have an idea of when she was going to find him and kiss the hell out of him, but she was beginning to think she wanted to surprise him rather than plan it out.

After one last check with Raven about the comms, she wandered through the drunk teenagers to find Bellamy barely on watch eating an apple.

“Raven can’t fix the comms,” she told him. “She thinks it’s on the Ark’s end, not ours.”

“Best Unity Day ever,” he said with a wry smile.

They looked out over everyone. “I’m still not entirely sure it’s a good time to have a party. The Grounder is still out there,” she said wryly. Almost everyone was at least tipsy, which didn’t bode well for defending their home.

“Ground _ers_ ,” Bellamy pointed out. “By now he’s made it home. He’s probably putting together a whole group to come after us.” He took a half step closer to her. “Relax, I’ve got security covered. And someone promised me something I’m quite looking forward to.”

Clarke plucked the apple from his hand and took a bite out of as she looked at him. “I think I’m gonna surprise you.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” Bellamy said and took a bite from the apple still in her hand, lower lip brushing over her thumb, dark eyes trained on hers. If anyone was staring at them there’d be absolutely no denying what was going on between the two of them.

She smiled at him, but it faded after a moment. “I’m just worried about what’s coming.”

“Clarke, relax,” Bellamy said, taking his apple back and let his fingers linger on her own. “The Exodus ship carrying your mother comes down in two days. After that, the party’s over. Have some fun while you still can. You deserve it,” he said softly.

“We deserve it,” Clarke said, tugging on his hand.

“I’m on watch right now,” Bellamy said. “Go have fun, I’ll catch up with you later.”

Clarke grinned and headed towards the others. A few steps away and she looked back at him. He was smiling fondly at her and his eyes were full of affection. She couldn’t help herself and darted back to kiss him quickly before darting away again. She glanced back again, and he looked somewhat stunned.

“Was that it?” he asked.

“Nope!”

She’d had some more moonshine, joined her friends on the dance floor, even coaxed Miller onto it, started playing a drinking game with Sterling and Fox, and started _beating_ them at it when Finn appeared at her side. He pulled her away from the other two teenagers and explained that he’d arranged a meeting with the Grounders. She didn’t want a war with them, but a warning that he was going to do something like this would have been nice. Even if they didn’t have many options to keep a war from starting.

Finn looked happy that she’d agreed to the terms of just them and no guns, but she headed straight for Bellamy. “Having fun yet?” he asked when he saw her. She grabbed his hand and pulled him slightly away from the others and from the torches. Finn couldn’t see what she was about to do, or she’d never get away with it. Bellamy grinned at her, clearly thinking that she was coming to surprise kiss him. He shifted his rifle out of the way and pulled her close, but he saw her face and the smile slipped from his own. “What’s wrong?”

Her hands went to his biceps and gripped tight. “Finn’s set up a meeting with the Grounds,” she said, and Bellamy went still, muscles tense. “I’m leaving to go talk to them.”

“Because you figure that impaling people on spears is code for let’s be friends?” he asked angrily. “Have you lost your damn mind?”

She shook her head helplessly. “I think it might be worth a shot. I mean, we do have to live with these people.”

Bellamy looked away briefly and his jaw tensed. “They’ll probably gut you and string you up as a warning.”

She moved her hands to cradle his face. “Well, that’s why I’m here. I need you to follow us, be our backup.”

“Does Finn know about this?” Bellamy asked.

“Finn doesn’t need to know,” she said, and Bellamy cracked a grin. “And Bellamy, bring guns. If this goes sideways, I want you at my back. I always want you at my back, even before our not-date.”

“You stay safe,” Bellamy said. “Don’t let Spacewalker get you in trouble.” He leaned forward and kissed her softly.

“It’s about time!” Monty called from somewhere nearby. A few people catcalled and someone shouted something about mom and dad.

“Follow us. Also, that didn’t count. Octavia would hardly throw up from that,” she said as she stepped out from the circle of his arms. “I have to go get my pack.”

“Stay safe. I’ll follow behind,” Bellamy said.

Somehow Clarke wasn’t even remotely surprised to see Octavia waiting for them at the bridge. Nor was she surprised to see Octavia’s soulmate had set the meeting up. Everything else about the meeting surprised her and absolutely nothing went well. When the first shot rang out, she was just so glad that she’d gone to Bellamy. She, Bellamy, Octavia, Finn, Raven, and Jasper ran and ran and ran back to the camp. Only once they got back to the gate did they stop running. As they panted for breath, Finn glared at Clarke.

“You got something to say?” Bellamy asked, stepping in between them. She grasped at the back of his jacket, not so much to hold him back as it was to touch him. Things could have gone considerably more sideways than they had.

“Yeah! I told you no guns!” Finn shouted.

“And I told you we couldn’t trust the Grounders,” Clarke said. “I was right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to?” Raven asked Finn.

“I tried,” Finn said. “But you were too busy making bullets for your gun.”

“You’re lucky she brought that,” Bellamy said. “They came there to kill you, Finn.”

“You don’t know that!” Finn protested. “Jasper fired the first shot!”

“You ruined everything,” Octavia said, looking directly at Jasper. She turned and stormed off into the camp.

“I saved you!” Jasper shouted after her. He scoffed and walked into camp. Clarke didn’t have the energy to deal with that brewing storm. Maybe tomorrow.

“Well, if we weren’t at war already, we sure as hell are now,” Finn said. “You didn’t have to trust the Grounders. You just had to trust me.” He looked at Clarke pleadingly. When she didn’t respond, he brushed past her, Raven hot on his heels.

She looked at Bellamy. “Like I said, best Unity Day ever,” he said.

Clarke was about to respond when there was a muffled explosion sound. Bellamy turned first, looking up at the sky. When she turned, he put one arm around her waist. “The Exodus ship?” he asked her. “Your mom’s early.”

Finally, she felt a bright point, as bright as the one in the sky. But that brightness quickly turned to dark ash when she realized something was wrong and the ship crashed. Bellamy’s arm around her waist couldn’t hold her up as her legs gave out, but he went down with her, cradling her in his arms. Her breath hitched in her chest and she felt like she couldn’t breathe but the tears kept coming. She knew her mom was on that ship. And now her mom was dead. Both her parents were gone, and she was all alone.

“Maybe she wasn’t on it,” Bellamy said. “Clarke? Sweetheart, you’re scaring me. You need to breathe.”

Well, not all alone, she thought as Bellamy hauled her up into his arms. She buried her face in his neck as he carried her into camp. She could hear the others asking what was wrong, where they’d all been, and what the noise was. Bellamy answered in short sentences. There were some exclamations of worry and Monty said, “I’m so sorry, Clarke.” Bellamy began moving again and she didn’t care where he was going.

“Hey!” she heard Finn say. “Where are you taking her?”

Clarke gripped the edge of Bellamy’s jacket tighter in her fist. “It’s none of your business, Spacewalker,” Bellamy said as he continued to move. “You’ve got your own girlfriend. Let me take care of mine.”

He kept walking, ducking down so slightly as he reached their destination. He lay her down and when she opened her eyes, she could make out the inside of his tent through her tears. He was kneeling next to her and looked almost as upset as she felt. He brushed a hand over her hair and moved to get up. She reached out for his hand and said, “Stay,” in between sobs.

“I will, I promise,” he said and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Just give me one minute.” He moved to the tent flap and called out for Monty. She couldn’t make out the conversation as she pushed herself up and began to unlace her boots. She hadn’t stopped crying, she didn’t feel like she was ever going to stop crying, but she just wanted her shoes off so she could curl up in a ball. “Hey,” Bellamy said softly, dropping in front of her. “I’ve got it.” She buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, as he carefully pulled her boots off. She heard his boots clunk down a moment later and then he started to tug her jacket off.

“This is not how I imagined you taking my clothes off,” she mumbled. Had it really only been that morning when she’d woken with him draped all along her and talked about sex?

“Oh, trust me, sweetheart. The next time this happens it’ll be for very different reasons,” he said, and she could hear the smirk in his voice. A rustle of clothing later and he sat down on the bed next to her. “Come on,” he said and pulled her down so that her head was on his shoulder. She gripped his shirt in her hand, and he ran a hand through her hair. “I’ve got you. Nobody’s going to bother us until morning unless we’re under attack or someone is actively dying. You just let it out. I’m right here.” He kept running his hand through her hair and murmuring that he was there until she fell asleep, comforted by just his presence.


	12. Chapter 12

She woke slowly to the feeling of warmth and fingers running through her hair. She was sprawled on Bellamy’s chest in a reverse of their positions from the morning before. She opened swollen, achy eyes and saw two pairs of boots neatly lined up and their jackets hanging on his clothing rack. She remembered what had happened the night before and felt the grief, but she let herself be still for a moment longer.

“How long was I asleep?” she asked quietly, her voice scratchy from waking up and crying the night before.

“Not long enough,” Bellamy said. “You want to sleep some more?”

“No,” she said, drawing idly on his chest. “Did you sleep?”

“Some,” he said. “You sure you don’t want more?”

She pushed herself up so she could see his face. “We need to go see what can be salvaged from the site.”

“Clarke,” he said softly, raising a hand to brush a thumb under her eye. “You don’t have to do that. Someone else can go. You can stay here and watch the camp. You don’t need to see it.”

“No,” she said, grief shifting slightly to the side with his concern for her. “We both go. But thank you.” She leaned down to kiss him.

Maybe it was because of the emotions from the night before, their conversation the previous morning, the fact that they were horizontal, or how she was sprawled over him with a leg between his, but the kiss moved from soft to borderline filthy in a matter of seconds. He rolled them, settling over her. He nosed down her neck and grasped one of her thighs, lifting it to wrap around his waist. She took the opportunity to run her hands up the back of his shirt and nose up his neck. She tugged on his earlobe with her teeth and licked behind it where she knew his mark was. Immediately he thrust with his hips and bit down on the base of her neck, causing them both to groan. Clarke was all for continuing, one hand going to Bellamy’s hair to hold him in place at her neck while she wrapped her other leg around his waist.

He, however, had different ideas. His hands may not have moved from her thigh and up her shirt, but he pulled back from her neck. “No, Clarke, wait,” he panted. “Not like this.”

“What?” she asked and dragged her lips down his jaw.

He pulled his hands away from her body and pushed himself up over her, which didn’t help her libido calm down at all. “Not like this. Not when you’ve spent the night in my bed crying.”

She glared up at him, but he did have a point. Still, she dragged her hands down out from under his shirt and down to his ass, where she squeezed. He swore and rocked his hips into her, which made her groan again. “I will concede to your point.”

“This doesn’t seem like much of a concession,” Bellamy said.

“That’s because I have a counteroffer,” Clarke said. “We revisit this soon.”

“Oh sweetheart, I’ll lock us in the top of the dropship tonight if that’s what you want,” Bellamy said with a smirk.

“You mean the place where we were going to torture Octavia’s soulmate,” Clarke asked. “You want to have sex up there?”

“We can lock the door, somebody made a bed, and it’s private. I don’t want anyone to hear you but me,” he said.

“You’ve been louder than me so far,” she pointed out.

“Whatever,” Bellamy said. “Tonight.” He rolled off her and they just lay next to one another for a minute before getting ready. Just before they left the tent, he stopped her, and he trailed fingers over her neck where he’d bit her. “So that’s kind of visible.”

“I don’t care,” Clarke said. “I’ve already worn one of your marks my entire life. What’s another?”

Bellamy grinned, but then it softened. “You don’t have to go to the Exodus ship with us. I mean it.”

“I do,” Clarke said. “Just stay close, alright?”

“I told you last night, I’ve got you.”

When the group gathered to head out Finn hadn’t been happy to see Clarke amongst them. Raven hadn’t seemed happy with Finn’s concern. Octavia wandered over as Bellamy was giving Miller last minute instructions before they set off.

“Bellamy’s okay with letting you go?” she asked. “Are you gonna be okay with this?”

“Your brother has asked me no less than twelve times if I’m sure since we woke up this morning,” Clarke said. “I’ll be fine.”

“You are acting very different than when Wells died,” Octavia said, sounding hesitant. “You basically went catatonic and now you’re willing to go out and see the site where…”

The grief for Wells had sucked her under due to the truth coming out and how long she’d hated him unnecessarily. The grief now was tinged by that and the knowledge that her mother had turned her father in. It still hurt to breathe and there was an ache inside of her that persisted and wouldn’t go away. But she _could_ breathe when it had felt like she couldn’t the night before. At some point it was going to feel that way again, but she couldn’t feel that way now, not when the Grounders could attack at any moment and she needed to be strong to lead them. She could break down again later in the safety of Bellamy’s arms in the quiet of his bed.

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated to Octavia.

They had a general idea of where the Exodus ship had crashed, and Finn suggested they’d get a better sense of its location the closer they got. They couldn’t see any smoke from the dropship, but it stood to reason that some of the Exodus ship would still be smoking from the explosion and the crash.

The trek to the crash site took a few hours. Raven and Finn were in the lead of the group while Clarke hung back. Bellamy stuck by her side, not saying anything. Once Finn called out that he could see smoke and their path became more direct, Clarke began to second guess her decision. Not long after she was able to _smell_ the smoke and the acrid scent of heated metal and chemicals. Her pace slowed, Bellamy matching, until they were the last two in the group of 10.

She reached for his hand, grasping it tightly. “I’ll be by your side the whole time,” he said. “You can back out now if you want to. Nobody will say anything about it.”

She stepped forward to exit the tree line and she knew instantly that this had been an absolutely terrible idea. The bulk of the ship was pressed up against trees on the opposite side of the expansive clearing, wreckage trailing after it in the giant gouges driven into the earth. From where they were standing, she could see actual burned, severed limbs.

“You wanna stay here?” he asked. “Go back into the trees so you don’t have to see?” When she didn’t answer he stepped in front of her, blocking her view. “Clarke?” he asked, concerned.

“I’m okay,” she said, and he raised his brows in response, clearly not believing her. “Okay, I’m not okay. But I – I can’t turn back now. Just stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

The closer they got to the center of the debris radius the fewer remains were recognizable. She tried to look for anything that could be salvaged, but nobody was letting her into the actual Exodus ship. Raven cited possible unsafe conditions, but she let Finn peer in, and Sterling and Monty fully crawl in the ship. Instead she wandered, Bellamy no more than a few yards away at any given time.

She realized after an hour that every time she saw remains, she was checking to see if they looked familiar, if any left hands had rings, or if there were any necklaces with rings. The thought horrified her and made tears burn in the back of her eyes and throat. Bellamy caught on to her distress and pulled her away behind a large chunk of wreckage to hold her until she forced the tears back. Again, he asked if she wanted to leave and she refused. 

Raven found some things they could use or repurpose from the wreckage, but they’d barely been there for two hours total before she and Bellamy found the hydrazine from the engines. After Raven explained the danger, Bellamy decided it was time to head back to the camp.

Bellamy lead the way back to the camp after that and Clarke stuck close to his side. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she replied. “I wish the comms on the Ark were working so we could figure out what happened on their end.”

“She might not have been on the ship. Something may have happened, and they needed her. Maybe the comms went out because someone tried to kill Jaha again,” Bellamy suggested.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Clarke said. She tried not to hope that her mom was still up on the Ark. Even if she was, something had gone horribly, horribly wrong to result in the crash.

When they got back to camp the first thing out of Miller’s mouth was that Murphy was back, he was heavily injured, and Drew and Connor had shoved him in the dropship. Bellamy exchanged a glance with her before they both hurried to see for themselves. It startled Clarke, how bad Murphy looked. Nobody had bothered to try to treat his wounds or even check on him in the hour he’d been at camp. He was covered in blood and wasn’t exactly cowering away from everyone, but it was close.

Bellamy ordered everyone except Connor and Derek out of the dropship, but Clarke refused to move. He had to have known that she wouldn’t leave, regardless of what he ordered. Finn also refused to move and started arguing with Bellamy. She didn’t say anything, just listened. What were they going to do? What was the best option? What was the right option?

Ultimately, Finn was right, and she said so before moving to Murphy’s side.

“Like hell he is,” Bellamy said. “Clarke, think about Charlotte!”

“I am thinking about her,” Clarke said, looking at Bellamy. He looked furious, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t at her, just the situation. “But what happened to Charlotte was as much our fault as it was his.” She turned back to Murphy and tried to visually triage his injuries. There was a lot of blood, both old and new, but it didn’t look like he had anything life-threatening for her to treat. She took his hand and was horrified to see what the Grounders had done to him. “He’s not lying. His fingernails were torn off. They tortured him.” She needed to get some seaweed tea in him fast, maybe mixed with some willow bark tea too.

“You and the Grounders should compare notes,” Finn said behind her.

“The Grounders know we’re at war. What did you tell us about them?” Bellamy asked.

 _Also, we never actually tortured Octavia’s soulmate_ Clarke thought, but there wasn’t any point in telling Finn that. He’d made up his mind about the whole ordeal and nothing could change it.

“Everything,” Murphy said after a second. She looked up into Murphy’s eyes. He didn’t look angry, not anymore. He just looked like a scared seventeen-year-old boy. She stood up and moved to Bellamy.

“Once he’s better, we find out what he knows, and then he’s out of here, okay?” she said and moved to the medical supplies, but Bellamy caught her arm.

“What if he refuses to leave? What do we do with him then?”

When she looked at Murphy, slumped on the floor in the corner she saw the boy who’d held a knife to her throat, who’d tried to kill Charlotte. “Then we kill him.”

She quickly treated the worst of Murphy’s wounds, Bellamy standing behind her the entire time. She gave him some of the pre prepared seaweed and willow bark teas, which tasted worse cold than they did hot, but she didn’t feel like wasting the time or energy to heat them up for him. Once she was done, Bellamy hauled her back to his tent. She could feel Finn glaring at Bellamy once they left the dropship. It may have looked like Bellamy’s grasp on her bicep was firm, but it wasn’t, and his thumb was rubbing against her arm out of sight. She knew if she tried to step away from him, he’d let her go instantly.

“You need rest,” he said as soon as they were safely away from prying eyes. “Today’s been bad for you.”

“I was looking for my parents’ wedding rings,” she blurted and felt tears start to burn again. Bellamy looked stunned by her statement. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “I just – I don’t know how to feel.”

“You’re allowed to have complicated feelings about her, Clarke,” Bellamy said, dropping to kneel in front of her. “I have complicated feelings about my mom. You’re allowed to grieve her even with how mad you’ve been towards her.” She nodded and hunched forward to rest her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “You need rest.”

“So, do you,” she said. “You got less sleep than I did.” Thinking of waking up in his arms made her remember. “We had plans for tonight.” Plans that she had very much been looking forward to.

“This is just a momentary hiccup,” Bellamy said. “Come on, up, just for a minute.” She sat up and he rose, moving to the tent’s flap. He stuck his head out and called, “Harper, if we’re not up by the end of your shift, wake us.”

“Mm, that won’t start all sorts of rumors,” Clarke said as she stripped off her jacket, rising to her own feet to hang it on the rack. Bellamy turned to her and she helped him out of his jacket, taking the opportunity to run her hands along his torso and arms.

“I not only kissed you in front of people last night but also publicly called you my girlfriend before carrying you into this tent where you spent the night. Rumors have already started, sweetheart.”

“I like that,” she said, smiling faintly.

“What? Calling you my girlfriend?” He grinned and tugged her in close.

“Well yes,” Clarke said, winding her arms around his waist. “But the sweetheart part.”

“You don’t like princess?” he asked in amusement.

“That’s Finn’s nickname and I’m not a princess.”

“No, you’re a Queen,” Bellamy said. “My Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.” He kissed her softly. “Come on, let’s sleep.”

They’d both been up for a while by the time Harper’s shift was over, but they stayed wrapped up in each other rather than getting up. Bellamy went off to do his usual morning check of the watch and the perimeter and Clarke went to check on Murphy. Once that was done and she’d reassured herself he wasn’t in risk of keeling over dead at any point soon despite the fever he’d developed overnight, she headed to the comms tent to have a moment to breathe. She was feeling warm and really didn’t have time to get a cold. And with such close quarters, everybody was going to get it before too long. She also had a feeling Bellamy was going to be the worst patient ever if he caught it. Raven was in the tent and looked up from the comms station when she walked in.

“You okay?” Raven asked. After Clarke’s half-hearted assent, Raven continued. “Still nothing from the Ark. It’s like they shut it down from their side. It could be solar flares blocking the signal,” she mused.

“But you don’t think so,” Clarke said.

Raven shook her head and said, “I got a bad feeling.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Clarke sighed. Raven glanced over, concerned. Clarke turned to go but Raven’s voice stopped her.

“Clarke, wait. I’m sorry about your mom,” Raven said. Clarke looked down and felt a tear fall from her eye. “Oh my god,” Raven said, making Clarke look up. “Clarke, your eyes.” Raven stood quickly and moved to the entrance to the tent. Confused, Clarke raised a hand to her face and her fingers came back wet with blood. Outside, Conor called for her. “Bellamy!” Raven shouted out of the tent. “Somebody go get Bellamy!”

“Where’s Clarke?” Conor called again and she pushed her way out of the tent to find him coming up. “It won’t stop,” he said when he saw her, gesturing to his bloody nose.

“What’s happening?” Raven asked as one of the boys at the campfire began coughing up blood. She realized it was Derek.

Looking at him, Clarke replied, “Raven, get away from us.”

“What?” Raven asked, confused.

“They’re the ones who brought Murphy in,” Clarke said, rushing to the dropship and Murphy.

“Somebody get Bellamy right the hell now!” Raven yelled. “Everybody back up from Derek and Conor.”

Murphy was in the middle of puking up blood when Clarke got inside the dropship, a stark change from when she’d seen him only moments before. “Murphy, hey, look at me,” she said, kneeling next to him. “I need you to tell me exactly how you escaped from the Grounders. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Murphy said. “I woke up and they forgot to lock my cage. There was no one there so I took off.”

“They let you go,” Clarke said, sitting back at the realization.

Movement at the door made her look up to see Bellamy. “Bellamy, stay back,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Did he do something to you?” Bellamy asked, staring threateningly at Murphy. He looked scared though too and when she shook her head no, he asked, “What the hell is this? You’re bleeding, there’s blood on your face. Are your _eyes_ bleeding? What the fuck, Clarke?”

“Biological warfare,” she said, looking up at him. He looked startled for a brief second before glaring at Murphy. “You were waiting for the Grounders to retaliate for the bridge? This is it. Murphy’s the weapon.” Murphy looked up at her, terror clear on his face. “Get Conor and Derek to come in here. Don’t let anyone touch them.”

Bellamy didn’t move as Derek and Conor walked themselves in. He did call for Miller and told him to stand right in the doorway of the dropship, splitting the difference between him and Clarke. “Is this your revenge?” he finally asked Murphy. “Helping the Grounders kill us?”

“I didn’t know about this, okay, I swear,” Murphy said.

“Stop lying!” Bellamy said harshly. “When are they coming?”

“Murphy,” Clarke said far more gently than Bellamy. “Think, alright? What can you tell us that’s useful? Did you hear anything?”

Murphy shook his head. “They are vicious, cruel,” he started.

“You want to see vicious?” Bellamy said, stepping forward.

“Hey, don’t,” Clarke said. “Whatever this thing is, it spreads through contact.”

“Clarke, I just spent the last few hours sleeping next to you,” Bellamy said. “If you’ve got it, I’ve got it, which is why Miller’s standing over there. He’s going to take over.” The thought of Bellamy sick with whatever this was spread fear through her.

Finn burst in through the makeshift door. “Clarke?”

“Bellamy, you’re not symptomatic yet. It may take time before it can spread,” Clarke said, completely ignoring Finn. “You may not have it yet.”

“I heard you were sick,” Finn said.

“Miller,” Clarke said. “No one should be in here unless they’ve had direct contact with Murphy. Tell the others to separate as much as possible.”

“Clarke, what is this?” Finn asked.

“I don’t know,” she said heavily. “Some kind of hemorrhagic fever. We just need to contain it before—”

Derek began retching on the opposite side of the room and then began seizing and puking up blood as Clarke scrambled over to him. The coughing stopped and she checked his pulse.

“Is he?” Bellamy asked hesitantly.

“He’s dead,” Clarke confirmed.

“What do we do?” Finn asked.

“Quarantine,” Clarke said. “Miller, go. And take Bellamy and Finn with you. Conor, who was with you when you found him? Who carried him in? Think.”

Conor looked up at Bellamy. “The first one there was Octavia.”

Bellamy exchanged a quick glance with Clarke and bolted. “Miller,” Clarke said. “Go get the others. Don’t touch them.”

“How long have you and Bellamy been a thing?” Murphy asked. “I thought you hated each other.”

“Really?” Clarke asked irritably.

“This is probably going to kill me,” he said. “And if it doesn’t, Bellamy will. So, you could at least entertain me.”

“It’s not important,” Clarke said.

Bellamy dragged a frustrated Octavia in after the others who had come into contact with Murphy walked themselves into the dropship. After giving Octavia a cursory exam, Clarke said, “Okay. We’re done. No visible signs of swelling or bleeding.”

“So, you’re saying she doesn’t have it?” Bellamy asked.

“I’m saying she doesn’t have symptoms, but that could change. We need to keep her here just in case.”

“No way. Look at this place,” Bellamy said, gesturing at the scared teenagers that had filled the dropship’s first floor. “She’ll get sick just being here.”

“Then so will you if you stay,” Clarke said. “You don’t get to have it both ways. Look, I’ll keep her on the third level with the people who aren’t symptomatic yet.”

“You don’t get to have it both ways either. If you have it, I have it,” Bellamy said. “If it spreads through contact, you were in my arms for hours. If it spreads through the air, again, we were breathing the same air and I kissed you last night. You have it, so I have it.”

“We don’t know how long it takes for the patient to become contagious,” she said, desperately hoping that he didn’t have it. “And think of Octavia being here as a way to keep her from sneaking out again,” Clarke said, knowing full well she was going to send Octavia out as soon as Bellamy wasn’t looking.

“Screw you, Clarke.”

“I’ll let you know if her condition changes. Now go. We don’t know if you have it,” Clarke said.

“I can make sure we do,” Bellamy said. “All I gotta do is kiss you again.”

“No. Our people need you out there when the Grounders come, not in here with me. They need you.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw. “You think I can be out there while our people are in here dying? While _you_ might be in here dying? I need you.”

“Bellamy, they need you. I’ll be fine. I don’t have any severe symptoms.”

Bellamy searched her eyes. “The second either of you get worse, you tell me. Okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

Later, after Octavia snuck out to see her Grounder soulmate and Octavia’s warning that Bellamy was going to be pissed, the second person died. Two of the less symptomatic boys carried her out and lay her down next to Derek as Clarke watched sadly. Bellamy walked over but stayed six feet or so away. “You got enough food in there, water?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking hard at him to see if there were any visible symptoms she could detect. “Some medicine might be nice.”

He smiled. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. Then, she called for his sister and she had to explain that she’d sent his sister out. “If anything happens to her, we are going to have problems, relationship or not,” he said and walked towards the others.

“I know,” she said, mostly to herself. Soulmates didn’t fix everything, after all, and Octavia had been the most important person to him for the vast, vast majority of his life.

But then, out of nowhere people outside the dropship’s quarantine began bleeding and it became quickly apparent that the quarantine wasn’t working and that they had given children guns. And children panicked. Panicking children and guns never went well. It was what she’d been afraid of when they found them. While the kids outside pointed guns at each other, she grabbed one from inside the dropship as Bellamy tried to diffuse the situation and fired three shots into the air.

“This is exactly what the Grounders want,” she said, walking forward. Suddenly she felt woozy and unsteady. “Don’t you see that?” Bellamy took a step towards her, concern starting to show on his face. “They don’t have to kill us if we kill each other first.”

One of the trigger-happy teenagers pointed his rifle at her. “They won’t have to kill us if we all catch the virus. Get back in the damn dropship.” Bellamy came up behind him and disarmed him. Finn looked at Bellamy in alarm as the kid scrambled back, clutching at his throat.

“Not to state the obvious,” Bellamy said to her, “but your quarantine isn’t work—Clarke?”

The world went sideways as she began to topple. She heard Raven start to say, “Finn, don’t—” before she was scooped up by Bellamy.

“Sweetheart?” he murmured for her ears only.

“I’m okay,” she said breathlessly. “Put me down.”

“No, you’re really not,” he said. “You were supposed to tell me when it got worse.”

“I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy. Octavia will come back with a cure,” she said, trying and failing at not leaning into him.

“There is no cure,” Octavia called as she ran in the camp. “But the Grounders don’t use the sickness to kill.”

“Really? Tell that to them,” Bellamy said, nodding to the tarp with Derek and Genevieve’s bodies. “I warned you about seeing that Grounder again.”

“Yeah?” Octavia asked. “Well, I have a warning for you too. The Grounders are coming.” Clarke could feel Bellamy’s shoulders drop. “And they’re attacking at first light.” She looked at Bellamy hard. “He’s my soulmate, Bell. What if our positions were reversed and she was a Grounder?” she asked, gesturing to Clarke.

There were murmurs and Finn loudly said, “What?”

“She has a point,” Clarke said.

“How many bullets can you make by first light?” Bellamy asked Raven, looking down at Clarke with a tense expression. Raven just nodded and headed off. Bellamy started to carry Clarke towards the dropship. “We need to talk,” he said to her. “After you’re better.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Clarke asked, looking up at him in concern.

“What?” Bellamy asked. “No. Why would you think that?”

“That’s a breakup line and you’re mad at me about Octavia,” Clarke said. “You need to put me down and get ready for the Grounders. I’m fine, just dizzy. I just need water.” He ignored her and walked right into the dropship. “Octavia can help. You need to be out there.”

“You told me right after I shoved that bullet in Dax’s throat that you can’t do this without me. What on either the Ark or Earth makes you think the same isn’t true for me?” Bellamy said fiercely.

“Wow, that’s disgusting,” Octavia said behind them.

“Here,” Murphy said, struggling out of his hammock. “She can take mine.”

“Bell, you need to go. You’re an asshole, but I won’t let her die,” Octavia said. “Lincoln said the virus doesn’t last long.”

“It’s true,” Murphy said. “I feel better.”

“Good for you,” Bellamy said.

“Go, I got this,” Octavia said. “I’m immune.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy said, drawing her attention. “I’m going to go save our people and when I come back you are going to be right here. You are not going anywhere.” He looked at his sister. “She can’t die.”

“You’re supposed to be Hades. You’ll just come find me,” Clarke murmured. Somewhere in the back of her head she figured she was probably delirious from the fever.

“That’s the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, sweetheart,” Bellamy said, leaning over her to brush her hair out of her face. “And while that’s a tragedy, this won’t be.”

The last thing she heard for a while was Murphy saying, “I think I might throw up again after all.”

The next thing she was aware of was Octavia calling out Bellamy’s name. Clarke wasn’t fully awake yet, but she heard Bellamy call out for her, which pulled her out of sleep.

“Bellamy?” she murmured, trying to sit up, but she had forgotten she was in a hammock and swayed dangerously, nearly toppling to the floor.

“Whoa, Clarke, hold on,” Octavia said, rushing the few steps towards her.

“Where’s Bellamy?” She looked around and saw him lying down on a mattress only a few feet away, blood covering his chin. “No!” She tried to get out of the hammock but couldn’t.

“I gotcha,” Octavia said, helping Clarke get out of the hammock and brought her over to her brother. “Bell, look. Clarke’s right here.” He reached for her, eyes slightly unfocused but desperate as she collapsed to his side. “I don’t know if soulmates can help each other heal or what, but now’d be a great time for that to happen.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy said faintly. “’M scared.”

“Right here. I didn’t go anywhere. Don’t you go anywhere either,” she said, resting half on top of him.

“I won’t,” Bellamy said, clutching her hand. “I promise.” She didn’t fully go back to sleep even as Bellamy passed out. She dozed a bit, realizing that she felt better when she woke up fully. At some point, Murphy told Octavia to get some rest and that he’d take over. Bellamy slept through it all, but of course, he jerked awake the second she got up to get some water.

“Clarke?” he murmured when he felt the empty space beside him. He sat up and looked around.

“I’m right here,” she said, coming to his side. “Here,” she pushed the water cup in his hands. “Drink. You need it.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked after wiping the blood from his nose.

“Better,” she said. He tucked an arm around her and slid his thumb down over her mark. “We’re not out of the woods yet, but I think the trees are thinning. I don’t know what we’ll do at daylight.”

“Finn had a useful idea. They’re going to blow up the bridge to buy us time,” Bellamy said. “You seen Octavia?”

“She was up all night helping people. Murphy gave her a break,” Clarke said. She’d been awake for that, even if she hadn’t wanted to move. She should probably start helping now though.

“Don’t tell me you trust him now,” Bellamy said.

“Trust? No. I do believe in second chances, though.”

Bellamy looked to the door of the dropship. “It’s almost dawn. Better get everyone inside. If we lock the doors, maybe the Grounders will think we’re not home.”

“Not everybody’s sick,” Clarke said. “And the bridge—”

“Sick is better than dead,” Bellamy said.

“You don’t think they’re going to pull it off.”

“I told Jasper to take the shot,” Bellamy said.

Clarke sighed and tucked her head on his shoulder. “Okay. Let’s get everyone inside.”

They were halfway through getting everyone in the dropship when they heard the explosion and saw the cloud of smoke.

“They did it,” Bellamy said, disbelieving.

“I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” Clarke said, mostly to herself. She glanced up at Bellamy. “It’s Oppenheimer, the man who built the first—”

“I know who Oppenheimer is,” Bellamy said.

It really did look like a mushroom cloud.

Octavia appeared out of nowhere before the others were back and flung herself at Bellamy. He and Clarke were alone in what Clarke felt had become their tent, taking a moment to breathe without teenagers crowding them.

“O?” Bellamy asked. “What’s wrong?”

“He wanted me to go with him,” Octavia said.

“The Grounder?” Bellamy asked.

“To the sea and then across it. Lincoln said the mountain men are going to come and kill us all. That they’re dangerous.”

“Who are the mountain men?” Clarke asked.

“I don’t know. He said there were things we didn’t understand,” Octavia said, pulling back from her brother. “He wanted me to go and I told him I couldn’t. I chose our people and you over my own soulmate.”

Bellamy pulled Octavia back in. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I wish your soulmate was someone easy.”

“You strung Atom up to a tree because we were kissing,” Octavia mumbled.

“You did what?” Clarke asked. “How did I miss that? _When_ did you do that?”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating goes into effect now, btw.

Later, much later, when the sun had set and Clarke had no one else to heal, she found herself staring at two freshly dug graves.

“You’re outside the wall without a gun,” Bellamy said, two torch bearing guards following him. She rolled her eyes. She was barely even outside of the walls. He certainly didn’t need to bring two others with him to get her. He stood at her side, his arm pressed against hers. She wished he would put his arm around her, but she wasn’t exactly sure where they stood at the moment.

“14 graves,” she said, instead of fighting him on it though. There should’ve been 18 graves there, not 14. They should put markers down for Charlotte, Roma, Pietro, and Mbege, so they could be remembered with the others too.

“We need to talk about Murphy,” he said.

“He was right about the bridge.”

“We’ll see. Octavia’s worried about the mountain men. That they were enough of a threat for Lincoln to leave.”

“We need as many soldiers as we can get.” Not that she particularly _wanted_ Murphy to stick around. But he had been right about blowing up the bridge and he might have information about the Grounders they could use.

“So what? We have privilege powers now?” Bellamy asked.

“It’s hard running things,” she said with a wry smile. He didn’t appreciate the call back if his frown was anything to go by. “We don’t know if they’re sending any more Exodus ships or even if anyone is alive up there. We may need all the help we can get.”

She left him in front of the makeshift cemetery and went to check on Raven and Conor, the last two patients, one last time before heading to bed. Bed turned out to be Bellamy’s, without even having to think about it, she just headed straight for his tent. She was exhausted and she’d slept better next to him the last few nights even considering how few hours of sleep she’d gotten overall. By the time she heard him come into the tent she was half asleep, laying on her belly. He paused and didn’t do anything until she pushed herself up to look at him.

“You can yell at me about Octavia in the morning,” she said. “I’m exhausted and we both almost died in the last 24 hours. My mom’s dead and our hope of anyone coming down from the Ark to help us probably is too. I’d rather you be angry at me and close than sleep somewhere else.” She paused. “Unless you don’t want to be near me.”

“Okay,” Bellamy said softly. “Okay. I want you to be near me too.” She lay back down and a moment later he crawled in next to her, settling in close, his arm draped across her back. “Is this going to be a permanent fixture? You in my bed?”

“It can be,” she said. “You scared me.”

“Scared Octavia too,” Bellamy said. “But like I told you, we were here just like this for three hours after you looked after Murphy. If you had it, so did I. It just took longer for me to come down with symptoms.”

“I don’t want to think about it anymore. We could’ve lost each other today,” Clarke said. “We’re both here and we’re alive.”

“We’re bad at communicating,” Bellamy said. “We’ve been on our own for too long. And we’re stubborn.” She snorted and he pinched her side. “I’m not good when things involve Octavia. I was there when she was born. I’ve spent my entire life protecting her. My sister, my responsibility,” he said, and it sounded like he was quoting something. Clarke couldn’t imagine the amount of stress and the weight that must have put on his six-year-old shoulders. And if he _was_ quoting something…that wasn’t fair for a child either. No six-year-old should be raising a baby. Clarke had a lot of complex feelings about Aurora Blake that she was never going to voice aloud. Bellamy could voice the issues he had with his mother, but she was never going to tell him how she felt.

“We’re both trying to be leaders and keep our people safe,” she said instead. “We don’t always have time to talk about our decisions before we make them. And we need to work on that. I knew you wouldn’t let Octavia go talk to Lincoln, but I had to try, to see if there was a cure or some kind of treatment for this. So, I sent her out there and didn’t tell you. I should have, I shouldn’t have lied about why I wanted her in the dropship.”

“I can’t lose her, Clarke. She was all I had for so long. I mean, we had mom, but it wasn’t the same. Everything about me was focused on keeping her safe. I didn’t want to be a guard, but it meant that I might be able to protect her more, that we’d be ignored more. I’m okay with her hating me if it means she’s safe.” Clarke twisted under him so that she could face him. He had tears in his eyes as he reached up to cup the side of her face. “And I can’t lose you either. You’re important too, so important and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. I barely understand _why_. We barely know each other, but you’re my soulmate and it shouldn’t make this much of a difference, but I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Octavia doesn’t hate you,” Clarke said. “She’s mad at you for keeping her from her soulmate, but she doesn’t hate you. We just need to make time to talk to one another before we make decisions, even if we don’t really have the time to do so. I can’t lose you either. It’s the same. I’ve never – you’re mine.”

He pulled her down into a desperate kiss that tasted slightly of blood still, only for her to yawn into it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, but Bellamy laughed and tugged her in close. “Do you think we’re ever going to have sex? Or is the universe conspiring against us?” she murmured and tucked herself into his chest.

“Do you trust me?” Bellamy asked.

“With everything,” she said. She couldn’t see it, but Bellamy had a calculating look in his eyes.

She woke to a burst of cold air, opening her eyes to find Bellamy kneeling over her, the blankets draped across his back. “What’s going on?” she murmured sleepily and began to push herself up, certain that something was wrong.

“Shh,” Bellamy whispered, a hand coming up to cradle her cheek as he ducked down to kiss her. She sank into the kiss but was still confused as to what he was doing. “Nobody’s expecting us to get up for a couple hours,” he continued when he pulled back. “I was kind of hoping you’d sleep a little more so I could wake you up with my mouth.”

“Oh Jesus,” Clarke said, waking up all the way instantly. She slammed back down to the bed as her hands darted down to his pants and undid the button and zipper. “We both need to be wearing less clothes.” She pushed his shirt up over his chest and he chuckled, lifting his arms so she could get it fully off. He dropped down again to cover her body and kiss her before he sat back on his heels, pulling her with him. She pulled her shirt off and was reaching back to undo her bra before the thought of being self-conscious even crossed her mind. But when she looked up at Bellamy his eyes were dark, pupils large.

He groaned and ran his hands up her sides before he tugged the cups of her bra down. Her nipples started to harden in the cold, and he thumbed over them. “I have been staring at these since I first saw you.” She wasn’t exactly surprised by the admission. She’d caught him staring often enough even before they’d gone to the bunker and acknowledged what they were to one another. She was more surprised how it felt to have him touch them. They’d never done much for her when she was masturbating, but Bellamy’s touch sent a wave of sensation through her.

“Pants,” she said desperately and unclasped her bra. “Pants need to be off now.”

It took some fumbling, awkward moments as they tried to remove their pants and underwear since they didn’t want to separate, but soon Bellamy was pressing her down into the mattress, skin on skin. She kissed him, hands running across his back and shoulders. She’d had dreams that prominently featured his shoulders. He held himself up slightly with one forearm, but his other hand wasn’t still either.

“I had plans,” he said as he pulled back just far enough from her lips that he could speak. “Plans for that third floor before everything went to hell.” His fingers pressed into her mark. 

“Like what? You were going to block the hatch so no one could get in?” she asked breathlessly. She ran her hands down his back to his ass and squeezed. God. He had such a fantastic ass. He thrust against her and the feeling of his cock against her drew a moan from her lips, head tilting back. His lips latched onto her throat, teeth scraping before he pulled back.

“We were going to start like this, just slow and easy. First, I was gonna make you come with my fingers,” he said. He shifted over her and his free hand trailed down until his fingers rubbed over her clit, causing her to suck a breath in. “And afterwards I was going to fuck you just like this, pressing you down into the bed. But now it’s gonna be in _our_ bed.” His head ducked down, and he tugged on a nipple with his teeth, inserting a finger into her simultaneously. A sharp jolt of pleasure shot down her spine and she moaned and canted her hips up in response. His thumb began moving over her clit in slow circles and he pulled her nipple into his mouth, lashing his tongue over it. She whimpered and dug a hand into his hair, dragging him up to her mouth. Her other hand dragged down his back and he rocked into her thigh. He pulled back, trailing his lips down her jaw as he spoke, “And then later after we’d both gotten some sleep and I’d gotten you off twice more, I was going to slide down between these legs that absolutely kill me and eat you out until you woke up calling out my name.”

“Jesus,” Clarke groaned at the thought of his tongue on her clit. “I’m glad only one of us is a virgin.”

“What?” Bellamy asked, pulling back as his fingers stopped moving. “You’ve never…”

“If that’s a deal breaker I’m going to kill you,” she said, though she was pretty sure he was just surprised. “If you don’t start moving your fingers again, I’m going to finish the job myself.” One of her hands moved down and dislodged his thumb to rub at her clit. She clenched down and sighed.

“That’s not as much of a threat as you think, sweetheart,” he said, licking his lips as he glanced down her body. “I think I’d like to watch that.” The finger inside of her started to thrust in and out again. “You’ve never…”

“I wasn’t waiting for you or anything,” she said, continuing to rub at her clit, though he tried to get his thumb back on her. “It just never happened. And it’s not like I don’t know how to get myself off.” Not that she’d done it in a while.

“When’s the last time?” he asked, his voice going low and gravelly. “Did you get your fingers inside or did you just play with your clit? Were you thinking of me?”

She couldn’t remember how long it had actually been. The days had kind of started blurring together a bit in solitary, but she knew it had been weeks before they’d landed on Earth. “I’ve either been sleeping next to you or next to at least two other people. And it was – there was a window in the door of my cell.”

“Oh, that’s a tragedy,” Bellamy said. “If you want, I want to see what you like, how you make yourself feel good. How you use your fingers, where you like to be touched.”

The thought of Bellamy watching her while she touched herself had her arching up into him. There was only one thing that could make it better. “Only if I can watch you too. I want to know what you like too.”

Bellamy actually growled and kissed her desperately. She clutched at his shoulders, abandoning her clit, but his thumb took over. He slipped another finger in her and she rolled her hips at the stretch, but it felt good. His fingers were much better than hers, reaching deeper and stretching her wider.

“I want to learn everything that you like,” Bellamy said, pulling back and propping himself up. He looked down her body to where his fingers were working. “Can’t believe nobody’s seen you like this.”

“Can we stop talking about my virginity?” Clarke asked. “It’s not – it’s not a big deal to me. Can you go back to telling me your plans for our first time before everything got ruined? I liked that.”

“Did you?” Bellamy asked and smirked.

“You could also come back down here. It’s cold.”

“As the Queen commands,” Bellamy said, swooping down to kiss her again. “You tell me if I hurt you. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” Clarke said.

He kissed her deeply before moving away from her lips. “In the morning after I ate you out until you woke up, maybe longer, I was going to get you on top of me,” he said into her neck, nipping and licking in between words. “Get you to ride me, fucking up into you and watching your tits bounce.” She groaned and he smothered it with a kiss. “Do you like that idea? Being on top where I can worship you?”

“Bellamy,” she panted. Between what he was saying – hello new kink – and his fingers and the fact that it had been at least a month if not longer since she’d gotten off, she was getting close fast.

“I wasn’t going to make you do all the work. You were going to sit in my lap, flush against me all skin on skin, so I could keep touching you and kissing you,” he said, punctuating it with a sharp kiss and a tug of her lip with his teeth. “I love kissing you. And your skin,” he groaned, kissing down her neck. “I just can’t stop staring at it, even when I hated you. I wondered how easy it would be to mark up, how long my marks would stay, if you’d let me mark you up and show everyone that you’re mine. And Jesus, sweetheart, you’re so gorgeous laid out like this for me, just for me.”

“God, do you have a virginity kink?” she groaned, arching into him.

“No, it’s just you. I have a kink for Clarke Griffin letting me touch her and make her feel good,” Bellamy said, increasing the speed and pressure of his thumb on her clit as his fingers scissored inside of her, stretching her more. “You’re all mine, my soulmate forever and ever. And I’m yours. You’ve got my mark on you and I’ve got yours on me. I thought about this, how your skin would feel against mine, what you’d let me do, how you’d taste.” He punctuated that with a lick up her neck but all she could think about was his tongue between her legs.

“Bellamy,” she whimpered, nails digging into his biceps. She panted his name out again as her hips jerked. He sealed his mouth over hers and swallowed her cries as she fell. She arched into him and the walls of her cunt clenched down around his fingers. A sharp jolt of pain/pleasure went through her as he slipped a third finger in, hips jerking away and then back towards him in response.

She rode out the orgasm as he continued to thrust his fingers in, though gently and without the added stimulation to her clit. She hummed and raised her arms above her head, stretching her body before she dropped her arms down to his back, tracing random patterns and shapes.

“That was something else,” he said, gaze a little dazed and soft and surprised. “Who knew sex was different when feelings are involved?”

She laughed and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “Feelings are most definitely involved. How do you want to do this? We’ve still got plenty of time.”

“Do you want to continue?” he asked.

“You deserve to come too,” she said. “And, while we can try other ways of getting you off later, I really want you to fuck me. Your plans sounded good.”

“You wanna be on top?” Bellamy asked. “You seemed to like the idea and it’ll let you be in control of the speed of things.”

Clarke frowned. The idea of sitting up and leaving their cocoon of warmth was not all that appealing. “It’s cold.”

“We have blankets,” Bellamy said. “And I’ll be pressed up against your front to keep you warm.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Up,” she said, smacking him on the ass. He jumped and pulled his fingers from her.

“Are you going to be bossy in bed?” he asked as they shifted so he was sitting, and she knelt over him. Goosebumps bloomed across her skin and he ran his hands up her sides.

“Who knows?” she asked, getting her hands on his cock for the first time. It was heavy and hot, and she absolutely could not wait to get it inside of her. “This is brand new territory.” The first little slide down his cock made her breath hiss out at the stretch even after he’d had three fingers inside of her.

“Clarke, are you okay?” he asked, concerned.

She lifted back up and slid down again, further this time. It was an odd mix of a slight burn from the stretch and a pressure. “Where’s my blanket? You promised me warmth.” He dragged a blanket over her shoulders as she repeated the action. The stretch was going to take some getting used to and she planned on getting used to it. Bellamy’s lips parted and she couldn’t help but lean forward and seal her lips over his as she sank down a little further.

“Clarke,” he murmured against her lips and clutching at her waist. “God, sweetheart.”

Before too much longer she was seated fully in his lap and he was groaning into her neck. “Jesus,” she groaned out at the feeling of being full. This was wildly different from his fingers inside of her and it felt _good_. “How is everyone not spending all the time having sex? We’re surrounded by horny teenagers.” She felt…glorious. She clenched down and moaned, tipping her head back as Bellamy half bucked up into her.

Bellamy ran his hands up her back under the blankets and pulled back from her neck, running his gaze up her body. “God, you have no idea how you look right now,” he said.

“Like Persephone?” she teased.

“Absolutely,” Bellamy said. The way he was looking at her kindled something in her, something entirely unrelated to sex. He leaned up and kissed her softly.

As she began to move, she realized there were advantages beyond controlling the pace. Bellamy alternated between staring up at her in stunned disbelief and adoration and kissing whatever parts of her he could reach, leaving marks that she couldn’t hide. His hands were everywhere on her, resting on her hips, running up her back, playing with her breasts, running through her hair, pressing at her clit. She wasn’t idle either, sucking a dark mark high up under his ear and their pomegranate, hands running across shoulders, arms, and down his back.

Her thighs grew tired after a while and she couldn’t keep up the pace, starting to rise only half as high. The burn in her muscles outweighed the feeling of sliding down his cock and she wasn’t entirely sure she could keep it up. She certainly wouldn’t come again if she did, but she’d never come more than once while masturbating anyways. She was pretty sure Bellamy would take it as a challenge if she mentioned it to him. And while that sounded lovely for another time, it was more important that he come. She was enjoying herself, but her body wasn’t used to this type of movement. She lifted up, but a spasm in her thigh had her slamming down. They let out identical groans and his teeth clamped down on her shoulder.

Seated fully in his lap, she swiveled her hips experimentally and he ran his tongue over the bite mark. She did it again, angling her hips differently and jolted when it ground her clit into him. His hands gripped at her hips as she ground down a third time, helping her. He kissed up her neck to her ear and started murmuring to her, telling her to use him for her own pleasure, how good she felt around him, how wet she was, how beautiful she was. His voice and his hands gripping at her hips, helping her grind her clit into him sent her spiraling up and up until she came, clenching down on him and arching back away from his chest.

He ran his hands up her back and pulled her close as she came down. She felt loose and both heavy and weightless at the same time somehow. She shivered through the aftershocks, her cunt still twitching ever so slightly. She realized the blanket had fallen away from her shoulders at some point and the sweat on her back was rapidly cooling. She kissed Bellamy, winding her hands into his hair. She could tell he was trying to keep the kiss sweet and soft despite how desperate he must have been. She clenched down on him hard, sending a jolt of pleasure up her spine, and he groaned into her lips. She pulled back and said, “You do whatever you need to.”

“Hold on to me,” he said and planted one hand on her lower back. Once she had wrapped her arms around his shoulders he moved, turning them over so only her shoulders and head rested against the bed. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he sunk back into her, arm around her waist keeping her off the bed as the other supported him.

“You know,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t think I’ve properly admired your biceps before now.” She ran her hands up them, stunned that he could support almost her full body weight and his own torso with just one arm and his abs.

He smirked, kissed her, and started to move, pulling almost entirely out. He thrust all the way back in with a sharp movement of his hips. It wasn’t soft and sweet anymore, but she _really_ didn’t have a problem with that. If he wanted to fuck her hard, she wasn’t going to stop him. “You have no idea what you look like right now,” he murmured.

“You already said that,” Clarke said, trying to focus on his face.

“It’s true,” he groaned. “God, Clarke, you’re so beautiful. You take my breath away sometimes. How did I get so lucky that you’re all mine?”

“I’m lucky too,” Clarke panted. “You’re mine too. I can’t imagine anything else, just you.”

Bellamy kissed her and when she came moment later, completely by surprise, he swallowed her cries again. He barely lasted longer than she did, lowering them both down.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he mumbled into her collarbone.

“No, I think that was the direct opposite of hurting,” she said, running her hands from his shoulders down to his hands just so she could hold them. She wanted to be close to him for just a little longer. Her thighs were definitely going to hurt later in the day, and she could tell she’d probably be sore in other places, but that pain was well worth it. “I maintain my earlier statement, though. Why isn’t everyone doing this all the time? I’ve never come more than once.”

“Because they aren’t us,” Bellamy said, sounding smug. “Though I may have created a monster.”

“Maybe,” Clarke said, feeling smug herself. “We’ll find out.”

“Somehow that sounds like a threat,” Bellamy said. “I don’t think I’m going to have a problem with it if this is the result.”

They lay together for a while longer, hands tracing idly over skin without any real intent behind it. Eventually though, the sounds of the camp stirring meant they had to get up as well. Bellamy had winced at the amount of bruising he’d left on her skin when they finally started getting dressed. His hands had left a slowly darkening imprint on her hips which he also seemed to regret. Clarke didn’t regret any of it. The marks on her shoulders were covered by her shirt for the most part, but the ones on her neck were a lost cause. And once her shirt was on, she realized the most impressive of the marks he’d left on her breasts was only half covered by her shirt.

She knew as soon as they left the tent absolutely everyone would know what had happened. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a few marks left on him, but they showed up better on her pale skin. He’d certainly enjoyed it in the moment and only regretted it because of how many there were.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“I’m not,” she said, though she fought a blush when someone wolf whistled at them as soon as they stepped outside. Bellamy just smirked and said, “I’m going to check the perimeter and last night’s patrol,” before he kissed her and walked off.

Almost as soon as he was gone, Finn strode up and pulled her into the comms tent with a hand on her forearm. “Now you’re spending the night with him?” he asked as she tugged her arm free.

“I’ve already told you, it’s none of your business.” Also, it wasn’t like last night had been the first night she’d spent the whole night in Bellamy’s arms.

“Jesus, Clarke, it looks like he attacked you,” Finn said, raising a hand as if to touch her neck.

“He didn’t,” she said and stepped back. She wanted to tug her jacket closed but she refrained. She wasn’t ashamed of the marks, she just didn’t want anyone touching them, especially not Finn right now. “And besides, he’s my…” She trailed off. What exactly was the right word to call Bellamy? He’d called her his girlfriend and they were soulmates, but it felt like more than that too.

“See, you don’t know what you are. He’s just using you to get everyone in the camp on the same side.”

Wasn’t getting everyone on the same side the goal? “He’s not using me. Trust me, he’s not.”

“I don’t know if I can trust your judgement right now,” Finn said.

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Finn. I have to go check on Connor and Raven.”

Finn’s voice stopped her at the tent’s entrance. “Connor’s dead. He died in his sleep. Which you would know if you weren’t so busy screwing around with Bellamy.”

She found out why Finn was being such an ass when she saw to Raven. The other girl eyed the bruises, a sort of morose expression on her face when Clarke did a quick physical to make sure she was fever free.

“Is this how my day’s going to go?” Clarke sighed. “Because God knows I left a shiner on Bellamy.” Raven snorted. “Apparently he likes my skin,” Clarke muttered, something she wouldn’t have said if anyone else had been in the dropship. “Finn thinks it’s another tally in the ‘Bellamy’s using me’ column.”

“I bet it’s mutual using,” Raven said. She was quiet for a minute. “I broke up with him. Last night.” When Clarke looked at her, Raven shrugged. “He doesn’t love me the way I want. He doesn’t love me the way he loves you.”

“Raven, I don’t—I wouldn’t,” Clarke said.

“I know. You have Bellamy. And by the looks of it you’ve had him recently.”

Clarke blushed and was still blushing when Octavia walked in a few moments later. “Hey, Clarke, have you – oh gross. Did my brother—no, you know what? I don’t want to know.” She turned and walked out. Raven laughed at Clarke’s embarrassment.

Honestly, the teasing comments and side glances were a welcome respite from the stress of the day. Nobody knew when the Grounders would return, so Bellamy had doubled the watch and patrols. Clarke released Raven to work on their gunpowder stash with Jasper. But everyone was stressed and teasing both her and Bellamy seemed to diffuse the tension. When they ate lunch together, crowded in close to one another in front of one of the fires, it felt like almost everyone in the camp wandered by to take a look at them. They weren’t even doing that much flirting. They were too busy talking about whether they had enough food in the camp or should they risk sending a hunting party out.

Finn wasn’t happy and spent most of the day glaring at Bellamy. He didn’t try to talk to her again, which Clarke was more than fine with. Things had been difficult between them for some time. Raven coming down from the Ark had sparked it off, but it wasn’t Raven’s fault. She still wanted to be Finn’s friend, but he was making it difficult.

She and Bellamy ate dinner together as well, sharing a few strips of the first batch of jerky, walnuts, and some of the last kudzu they had left. They sat close, sides pressed against one another. He’d been touching her casually all day, brushing a hand across her arm or shoulder as he passed her or brushing her hair back when it kept falling out of the knot that kept it out of her face. The casual touching had started on the trek to the wreck of the Exodus ship, but it had increased dramatically since they’d had sex that morning.

She liked it.

As they finished their meal, he knocked her knee with his own. “I’m going to take one of the late watches,” he said. “You gonna be there when I get back?” He looked slightly nervous.

“I thought we agreed that neither of us want to sleep anywhere but next to each other,” she said, and his frame relaxed slightly. She could wait up for him. She finally knew what she wanted to draw for him but just hadn’t had the time yet.

“I’ll try not to wake you up,” he said, leaning into her space.

“I can stay up. I don’t mind,” she said.

“No, you should sleep,” he said. “I kinda like the idea of you sleeping in my bed even when I’m not there.”

“So I get to sleep but you don’t?” Clarke asked.

“You’re gonna need to patch us up with the Grounders come,” Bellamy said. “I just need to shoot them.”

“Don’t say that,” Clarke said. “I don’t want to think about how many people we may lose.”

“I know,” Bellamy said. He looked over their group of teenagers. “We’re going to do everything we can, though.” He looked back at her. “Finn’s been glaring at me all day. He give you a hard time at all?”

“He thinks you’re using me,” Clarke said.

“Well,” Bellamy said with a smirk. “I kind of am. But it seems like you’re using me too.”

“That is true,” Clarke said and let Bellamy draw her in for a kiss, holding her tight against him. “Wake me when you come in?”

Later, she woke with his head between her thighs, halfway to an orgasm. She had no idea how he’d managed to get her pants off without waking her given how easily she’d woken in the morning. She pushed the blankets that covered them away, desperate to see him. “God, Bellamy,” she groaned and reached a hand down to run through his curls. He looked up at her and she could _feel_ him smirking. He winked and sucked her clit between his lips. “So glad you’re not a virgin.”

The next day progressed much the same minus the confrontation with Finn. Their friends teased them good naturedly and Finn tried ignoring them instead of glaring. The main difference in the morning was that she had beard burn on her thighs and a ring of bruises and teeth marks surrounding the pomegranate on her hip. Bellamy had some serious welts down his back from her nails and a smirk that seemed like a permanent fixture all day. 

The main difference in the afternoon was that Terra decided it was time to introduce Octavia to the wonderful world of Disney with nothing short of _Mulan_. Bellamy had a few choice words to mutter under his breath about historical inaccuracies, but Octavia seemed interested.

“I told her about the movies, but I don’t think I did a very good job,” Bellamy said as Raven finished getting the projector set up inside the dropship. It wouldn’t make the film very big, but with some of the white part of one of the parachutes, they all figured it would work fine. There wasn’t much space on the first floor of the dropship for everyone to watch, but most of the older teenagers didn’t want to anyways.

“Well, she gets to see at least this one now,” Clarke said. “Terra won’t take no for an answer. I tried to tell her it’s not a good time for this since we don’t know when the Grounders are going to retaliate, but she said we were all too stressed.”

“I don’t think we’re stressed,” Bellamy said, pulling her into his side. “But if _you_ think we’re stressed we could go do something about it.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Miller’s watching the gate and the guard’s been doubled. Your sister is watching her first movie ever. We’re going to sit in there with her and maybe pretend that it’s a date.”

He groaned but let her tug him into the dropship. Someone had cleared the floor space inside, shoving the medical table up against the wall. Terra was already sitting on it with Caliana at her side. Caliana was the youngest in the camp at just barely 13 and Clarke had no idea why she’d been arrested. She did know that Caliana and Terra had been roommates in the Skybox.

There weren’t a ton of people in the dropship and Clarke wasn’t sure if that meant people hadn’t shown up yet or that people weren’t going to watch. Octavia was there and sitting with Harper and Monroe on the medical table. Bellamy headed for the wall opposite the projector screen and sat down with his back to it. She started to sit next to him, but he pulled her down to sit in between his legs. Octavia groaned and Harper nudged her, laughing. Clarke blushed slightly, but Bellamy just wrapped his arms around her waist.

A few more people trickled in before Raven started the movie. Clarke watched Octavia almost as much as the movie through to when Mulan joined the guys at the military training camp. She looked happy and carefree watching the movie. Clarke didn’t know what had prompted the decision for _Mulan_ specifically, but it was a good one.

Once Shang started singing about being a man, the quiet in the dropship disappeared and everyone but Bellamy and Octavia started to sing along with the movie. Clarke could feel Bellamy laughing at her even if she couldn’t hear it, but she wasn’t bothered by it. Octavia grinned wildly as Mulan figured out how to get the arrow down from the pole during the song, but once the song was over and she looked back at Octavia, Bellamy gently turned her head to face the screen.

“It’s not a date if you keep staring at my sister,” he murmured into her ear.

Well, he had a point. So, she settled back into him and laced her fingers through his. It was a turning out to be a much better date than her attempt at the bunker.

After the movie was over Caliana asked, “Is the sequel on one of the tablets?”

“There’s a sequel?” Bellamy asked incredulously.

“All Disney sequels are bad,” Raven said. “Doesn’t matter when they were from, the early stuff, the middle stuff, or the just before the end of the world stuff. They’re all bad.”

“Excuse you,” Terra said. “That is _Lion King 2_ erasure and I will not stand for it.”

“There’s a sequel to _The Lion King_?” Harper asked. “They never showed us that.”

“It’s in the Ark’s database,” Terra said. “It’s so good. It’s about Simba and –” She stopped and turned to look at Octavia. “Did your brother tell you about _The Lion King_?”

“Yes,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes. “Mufasa falls off a cliff, Simba lives in the jungle and Hakuna Matata happens and I don’t get it, Simba and Nala fall in love and Bellamy wouldn’t explain that because I was 7.”

“I mean, that’s a sad one but we could do that next. And then the sequel because it’s awesome,” Terra said.

“This is going to be a regular thing?” Bellamy asked.

“Well, if we don’t all die first, why not?” Raven asked. “There’s a bunch of stuff on those tablets. They were clearly planning on hunkering down for a while. There’s some stuff on there I don’t think the Ark had. A bunch of TV shows too.”

“What else is on there?” Monroe asked.

“All the _Star Wars_ stuff, including the really, _really_ old ones. _Lord of the Rings_ , like four versions of _Dracula_ or Dracula adjacent, and something called _Troy_ which just makes me think of _High School Musical_.”

Clarke felt Bellamy perk up behind her. “There’s something called Troy? Is it about _The Iliad_?”

“That’s one of the books we found,” she said, twisting to look at him. He looked excited about the prospect.

Raven narrowed her eyes. “What’s that about?”

“It’s about the Trojan War,” Octavia said. “And I hope that movie isn’t about _The Iliad_ or _The Odyssey_. I had to deal with those two epics way too much growing up.”

“Hey! Those are classics!” Bellamy said. “And if that asshole archaeologist hadn’t fucked up the dig, then there could’ve been proof of the war.”

“Oh God,” Raven said. “Is your niche interest history? _Ancient_ history?”

“He named me Octavia. After a Roman emperor’s sister. He is probably literally the biggest history nerd on Earth. Do not let him get his hands on any historical movie. Because I will bet you imaginary credits none of us have that it’s going to be wrong and he’s just going to complain about it.”

“That was one movie one time,” Bellamy muttered under his breath.

Clarke twisted so she was sitting sideways between his legs, hers draped over one of his. “I figured that out with the whole Hades and Persephone thing,” she said quietly. Then louder, “We should watch _Hercules_ then. Even I know that’s wildly wrong.”

Bellamy groaned and dropped his head to her shoulder. “That’s the one movie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of Bellamy's plans were MY plans until I remembered they couldn't happen because they were going to be bleeding out their eyeballs. There are two pop culture references within five paragraphs of each other while they're having sex that continue to make me snort every time I've proofread this chapter.


	14. Chapter 14

The following morning, despite Bellamy’s best efforts to keep her in bed for just a little longer, Clarke made herself get up not long after waking. The allure of a shirtless Bellamy, all warm and cuddly, in their bed was highly appealing, but they had no idea when the Grounders were coming. As she pulled her jacket on, she turned to face the bed. Bellamy was turned on his side, head propped up on his hand and watching her. He looked so unlike the Bellamy Blake she saw that first day on the dropship.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want to spend a little longer in here?” he asked, a lazy grin on his face.

_God, I love him_ she thought and then _What?_ But it was true. She did love him. She loved him when he was an asshole and when he was holding her in his arms. When did she fall in love with him though? Was it a process or was it just now? Was it when he brought her the sketchbook, the flowers, when he saved her from Dax, when he let her cry through the night on his chest?

There must have been something showing on her face because he sat up, looking concerned. “Clarke?”

“I –” she started to say but couldn’t bring herself to say it. She’d only just realized, she needed time to think. “I have something for you,” she said instead and grabbed her sketchbook from the table. She’d carefully cut one page from the sketchbook the day before, but still kept the page tucked inside.

“You got me a present?” he asked, sounding surprised and happy.

“No,” she said and slid the drawing from the book. “I _made_ you a present. Pretty sure I can’t find anything out there that you’d want.”

“You got me an axe,” he said as he took the pages, looking up at her. “And I’d take flowers if they came from you.” She blushed, remembering the axe. She had found him a present in that bunker, hadn’t she? He looked down at the drawing and she had to look away before she could see his reaction. She’d never given artwork to anyone who wasn’t her parents or Wells before. “Clarke, this is…this is _us_ ,” he said.

She’d drawn Hades and Persephone, hands clasped around a pomegranate and their worlds colliding around them on the page. Shadows melted into flowers and vines disappeared into shadows. Both of their faces were obscured, either Hades in shadow or Persephone by the flowers woven through her hair. It wasn’t until she went to cut the drawing out of the book that she realized it wasn’t generic faces she’d obscured, but their own. And it was certainly Bellamy’s hands on the page. It hadn’t been intentional to draw them as Hades and Persephone, but after the fact it made sense. It was their mark, their connection. She wasn’t sure she fit Persephone’s role and he fit Hades’s, but for now it worked.

When she looked back at him, he was staring down at the drawing, gently tracing over it with a finger. “Do you – I also drew Octavia, but that was more to practice.” He looked up at her and she trailed off, suddenly shy.

“Clarke, I love it.” He set it down carefully and climbed out of bed to reach her. He wrapped his arms around her in a hug, which was distracting because of all the warm skin, but she hugged him back and tucked her face into his neck. “I mean it. Thank you.”

She smiled into his skin and said, “You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it, really,” he said and pulled back to kiss her.

“Bellamy!” Jasper shouted from outside. “I _really_ don’t want to interrupt anything, but one of the guns is jammed and Miller can’t fix it.”

Bellamy pulled away and sighed in exasperation. “We never get any private time,” he said, but he went to pull a shirt on.

“You know that isn’t true,” Clarke said and watched him carefully fold the drawing and put it in his jacket pocket.

“Well it feels like it is,” he said and wrapped his arm around her shoulders before leading her from the tent. Jasper was standing a few feet away, a hand over his eyes, but was also clearly peeking through his fingers. “You go find us breakfast. I’ll find you after I fix the gun.” He kissed her, quick and sweet, before walking off with Jasper.

Clarke watched him go for a few more seconds before going to search for something for breakfast. Everyone was mostly managing to make do with two small meals a day and sort of supplementing with bone broth. But it wasn’t going to cut it for winter. And God help them when they started getting sick in the winter. She didn’t know what she was going to do.

She grabbed some nuts and some jerky. She planned to sit and wait for Bellamy, but she found herself walking towards one of the two high points in their camp. She stood there and scanned the tree line but found nothing. The lack of movement unsettled her more than seeing a Grounder would. She heard Bellamy behind her, talking about the watch with someone and then his footsteps as he made his way to her.

“Anything?” he asked, reaching her side.

“It’s been two days. Maybe the bomb at the bridge scared them off for good.”

“You believe that?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. They’re coming.”

“Jasper thinks he can cook up some more gunpowder if he gets some sulfur,” Bellamy said as he moved away, and she followed. “And Raven says she can make that into landmines. So, uh, be careful where you step,” he teased, drawing a smile from her. “What I really need is a thousand more of her tin can bombs so I can roll into their village and blow those Grounders to hell.” She frowned and he saw it. “That’s what they want to do us,” he pointed out.

“Can’t believe we survived 100 years just so we could slaughter each other.” Defending their home was one thing and necessary but going full scale assault on a village with non-warriors there was different. “There has to be another way.”

Bellamy paused and then changed the subject. “Any word from the Ark?”

“Radio silence.”

“Finally ran out of air,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “Maybe my mom was lucky, being on the Exodus ship,” she said. He tugged her into him and wrapped his free arm around her waist. “At least it was quick. No one’s coming down to save us.” She looked up at him and blinked back tears.

“We’ll save ourselves,” he said and kissed her forehead.

Things had been bad between not knowing when the Grounders would come and not knowing about the Ark. But she hadn’t remotely anticipated things becoming _so_ bad when their winter jerky rations went up in flames. She didn’t want to go out hunting, it was too dangerous with the Grounders out there. But they needed the meat, she knew that. She definitely didn’t want to head out with Finn, especially since he seemed back on the flirting train. She’d rather go with Bellamy, but he wasn’t leaving the camp and she hoped Myles’s presence would keep Finn from flirting.

“Be back by nightfall,” Bellamy reiterated to her after he’d told everyone else the same. A hand was on her face and the other was at her waist, thumb tucked down past her waistband. When he’d tugged her close, she’d slid a hand up into his hair and the other around his waist. His gaze was intense and focused and she loved him all the more for his fierce protective nature. “If you’re not—”

“You will stay right here and protect the others,” she said, cutting him off and tugging slightly at his hair. “We’ll be fine. We’ll head to the bunker or hunker down somewhere tonight if we need to. There’s that car I still need to show you.”

“Didn’t he try to have sex with you at the bunker?”

“I’m not going to sleep with him,” she said dryly. “I have you for that. And besides, Myles will be with us.”

“Stay safe,” he said. “And remember, you kill it, you get to keep the fur. And our bed could use some more furs. Or you could use a cloak for winter if it’s big enough.”

“You’re going to make me a cloak?” Clarke asked, pleased with the idea.

“My mom was a seamstress on the Ark,” Bellamy reminded her. “I do know how to sew.” He kissed her, pressing his thumb hard against her mark. “Bring home dinner and be back by dark.”

The goal was to do both of those things and at the very least make out with Bellamy before sleeping. But she and Finn realized too late that they were walking into a trap and she was suddenly incredibly grateful that Bellamy wasn’t with her. When Anya said Finn would die if she couldn’t save the girl, Clarke felt guilty about the relief over Bellamy being safe at camp even as she was terrified for Finn’s life. She was terrified for Myles too. She didn’t know if the Grounders had killed him or left him unconscious in the woods. She was terrified for her own life.

She knew from the start that saving the girl was going to need a miracle. She didn’t have the supplies or the training for this kind of work. She couldn’t save her so she’d need to find another way to get them out. Then, when Finn was dragged away from her and killed, it was a plan to get herself out. She needed to get out and get back to Bellamy and warn him and everyone else of what was coming. When Caliban told her there’d be nothing for her to go back to, she knew what she had to do. Any other plans of escape vanished. Killing him wasn’t like killing Atom, no matter the similarities. She knew she’d have nightmares over it. 

When her foot hit the snare, she went down, and she hit her head, her last thought was that Bellamy had better stay in the fucking camp and not come after her.

Waking up as she felt to the ground wasn’t pleasant and she was pretty sure she had a concussion after everything. Seeing Anya was the exact opposite of what she wanted, but she was beyond relieved to realize Lincoln had saved both her and Finn. She also knew she had a concussion. She was still terrified for her life, and for Finn’s, but now she was terrified for Lincoln when he left them to buy them time, of the Reapers in the tunnels, and that they wouldn’t get back to camp in time.

She ran and ran and ran, thinking back to the first time she’d scrambled through the forest, running for her life in terror. Only this time, she knew what she was running from. They were nearly to the camp, there was an explosion and she pushed herself harder to get back, terrified they hadn’t made it in time. The gate dragged open for them and she ran through, straight for Bellamy. He reached out to steady her and she threw her arms around him, holding tight. He hugged her back, equally as tight and she gave herself a minute just to let him hold her before she pulled back.

“We heard an explosion. What happened?” she asked.

“Murphy happened,” Bellamy said, his voice rough. There was a shadow of something around his neck.

“Thank God,” Jasper said, pulling Clarke away from Bellamy and into a hug. “Where have you been? Where’s Monty?”

“Monty’s gone?” she asked, horrified. Jasper’s face fell.

Bellamy took her hand. “Are you bleeding?” he asked, and she looked at her hands to see dried blood from Tris and the man she murdered.

“It’s not mine,” she said. “It’s not Finn’s either.”

“Clarke, we have to leave. Now,” Finn said. “All of us do. There’s an army of Grounders, unlike anything we’ve ever seen, coming for us right now. We need to pack what we can and run, now.”

“Like hell we do,” Bellamy said. “We knew this was coming.”

“Bell,” Octavia said. “We’re not prepared.”

“And they’re not here yet. We still have time to get ready,” Bellamy said. He looked out over the others. “Besides, where would we go? Where would we be safer than behind these walls?”

“There’s an ocean to the East,” Finn said. “People there will help us.”

“You saw Lincoln,” Octavia said. Finn nodded.

“You expect us to trust a Grounder?” Bellamy asked. He raised his voice and addressed the group. “This is our home now. We built this from nothing with our bare hands.” As he turned, Clarke saw that what she thought was shadowing was actually bruising. “Our dead are buried behind that wall in this ground. _Our_ ground. The Grounders think they can take that away. They think that because we came from the sky, we don’t belong here. But they’ve yet to realize one very important fact: we are on the ground now, and that means we are Grounders!” The kids began cheering and shouting their support of Bellamy.

In an instant, Clarke knew that if things had been different on the Ark, he either would have become Chancellor or started a revolution. She also realized she loved him fiercely, but his plan was going to get them all killed.

“Bellamy’s right,” she said loudly. “If we leave, we may never find a place as safe as this. And God knows, in this world, we could be faced with something even worse tomorrow. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that if we stay here, we will die tonight.” She looked at Bellamy apologetically before looking at the others. “So pack your things. Just take what you can carry. Now.”

She looked back to Bellamy as their people broke up to go pack. He looked hurt, and a little disappointed. She tried to convey that she was sorry with just her eyes. He’d been standing so tall and strong while he was speaking and now…

“Where is he?” Octavia asked behind her.

Finn didn’t say anything, but Raven’s call of “Help me,” broke out calls of her name from the kids. Clarke and Bellamy ran over to her and Clarke was horrified to see that the front of Raven’s shirt was wet with blood.

“Murphy shot her,” Jasper said as Finn scooped her up, causing Raven to cry out in pain.

“Get her into the dropship,” Clarke ordered.

As she moved to follow Finn Bellamy stopped her. “Clarke, leaving here is a mistake.”

“The decision’s been made,” Clarke said.

“Crowds make bad decisions,” Bellamy said pleadingly. “Just ask Murphy. Leaders do what they think is right?”

“I am. You have to trust me on this. We can’t beat them,” she said and headed into the dropship. A second later he followed after her.

Raven didn’t look good and Clarke really didn’t like that there wasn’t an exit wound on Raven’s back. “I need to cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding,” she said. She grabbed the knife that doubled as a scalpel and doused it in alcohol before putting it in the small fire they’d set up for sterilization. It flared brightly as the moonshine burned off. The bullet was still inside Raven, and she didn’t have the capabilities or the time to get it out and it needed to come out. Leaving the bullet inside of her could kill her, but she couldn’t think about that now.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said as he moved towards her. “We need to talk about this.”

“They’re sending an army, an organized one, and they’ll be here tomorrow,” Clarke said. “Finn and I saw the Reapers. They’re monsters. I don’t know what they used to be, but they don’t seem human anymore. We need to go as soon as Raven can be moved. There’s so much that we didn’t know.”

Once the knife was burning bright red she moved back to Raven’s side. Cauterizing the wound wasn’t pleasant for anyone involved. The only other time she’d had to do it was for Finn and she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.

“I don’t understand,” Finn said when it was done. “How did Murphy get a gun?”

“Long story,” Bellamy said, which wasn’t even remotely a real answer.

“We got lucky,” Raven said. “If Murphy hit the fuel tank instead of me, we’d all be dead.”

“Wait, there’s rocket fuel down there?” Clarke asked. “Enough to build a bomb?”

“Enough to build a hundred bombs,” Raven said. “If we had any gunpowder left.”

“Let’s get back to the Reapers,” Bellamy said. “Maybe they’ll help us.” Clarke and Finn exchanged a glance. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he continued.

“Not this enemy,” Clarke said. “We saw them. Trust me, it’s not an option.”

“There’s no time for this,” Finn said. “Can she walk or not?” he asked Clarke.

“No. We have to carry her.”

“The hell you will,” Raven said, starting to push up. “I’m good to go.”

“Hey,” Clarke said, leaning down. “Listen to me. That bullet is still inside you. If by some miracle there’s no internal bleeding, it might hold until we get somewhere safe. But you are not walking there. Is that clear?”

Raven nodded and sank back into the chair. “I’ll get the stretcher,” Finn said and hurried off.

“Can’t run away fast enough,” Bellamy said, stopping Finn in his tracks. “Real brave.”

Finn came back over. “Dying in a fight you can’t win isn’t brave, Bellamy. It’s stupid.”

“Spoken like every coward who’s ever run from a fight,” Bellamy said. There was something dark in his eyes that Clarke didn’t like.

“All right, that’s enough,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

“If they follow, it’s a hundred- and twenty-mile walk to the ocean,” Bellamy said.

“Look, we’re wasting time,” Finn said. “It he wants to stay, he can stay,” he said before heading out to get the stretcher.

“No he can’t,” Clarke said after Finn. She looked back at Bellamy and moved over to him. “We can’t do this without you, Bellamy.” _Please_ , she thought.

“What do you want me to say, Clarke?” he asked.

“I want you to say that you’re with us, with me. Those kids out there, they listen to you.”

“They’re lining up to go. They listen to you more,” he said, sounding bitter.

“Hey,” she said, grabbing his head and pressed her thumb into his mark, hard. “I gave them an easy choice. But five minutes ago, they were willing to fight and die for you.” He looked sad, like she was breaking some part of him. “You inspire them, you inspire _me_.” He broke eye contact with her and looked over her shoulder towards the door. “I’m afraid we’re going to need that again before this day is through.” When he didn’t say anything or even look at her again, her stomach sank, and she turned to start packing their meagre medical supplies.

She didn’t know what she’d do if he stayed behind. She couldn’t leave their people alone, but she also couldn’t leave him alone. His boots clanked on the flooring as he left. Clarke stopped packing and tried not to cry.

“Don’t beat him up too bad,” Raven said. “But you gotta fix that. It’s been pretty shitty since you all didn’t come back last night.”

“What happened?” Clarke asked, sniffling slightly.

“Monty and Jasper had to convince him to let us go look for you, but he was wrecked,” Raven said.

“I told him not to leave,” Clarke said. “I told him we’d be fine, but Anya went and kidnapped us.”

“You should mention that to him. How you got the intel on the attack wasn’t exactly clear,” Raven said. “While we were looking Monty vanished. We found Myles and he was pretty beat up, so we had to come back here. He knew Grounders took you, but he couldn’t tell us anything else. Murphy killed him and was trying to make it look like an accident, but Jasper saw him. I think he might have killed Connor too. Nobody else died in their sleep from the fever. Murphy took Jasper hostage and was going to kill him I guess, but Bellamy traded himself.”

“What?” Clarke asked, turning around.

“We had a plan to get the door open from below, hence the me getting shot part,” Raven said, gesturing to the floor. “By the time I got the door open I could hear Murphy was already hanging Bellamy.”

“What?” Clarke asked, her voice breaking. She remembered how his voice sounded and the bruising on his throat. “I’ll be back,” she said and stormed off. She found Bellamy standing by the water station just watching everyone with a sad expression. “Murphy tried to hang you?” she asked, trying to get to his neck, but he pushed her hands away, which hurt.

“I’m fine,” he said, barely even looking at her. “But I doubt you’ll believe me because you clearly don’t want to listen to me. I thought we were supposed to be a team.”

“That’s not—Jesus. We _are_ a team. And I’m sorry I didn’t consult you first, but Anya kidnapped us to save her second. Her second was a child, Charlotte’s age. She was going to kill us if we couldn’t heal her and I couldn’t. They train their children to kill. Anya’s not in charge, there’s a commander above her. We’re not ready for them.” She knew she was begging, hoping he’d see reason. “Anya’s just in charge of a single team.”

Bellamy’s shoulders relaxed a little, but not much. “Are you okay?”

“Anya was going to kill me. How do you think I’m doing?” Clarke asked. “I hit my head getting caught in a snare after I ran away.” At that he glanced at her forehead where a lump was growing. “I killed someone,” she said, and his eyes locked onto hers. “It wasn’t like Atom. I did it to get away, to get back to you. I slit his throat and covered his mouth to keep him quiet as he died. I didn’t hesitate or second guess myself.”

Bellamy’s eyes softened somewhat. “This is our home.”

“I know,” she said and took the risk to take his hand and he let her. “We can make a new one, though. Maybe we get lucky with the people Lincoln mentioned. Maybe we don’t. But we can’t stay here.”

“Clarke,” Finn called from the dropship, stretcher in hand.

“I’ll always listen to you,” she said before she headed to the dropship.

When it came time to leave, Miller took charge since Bellamy wasn’t. Clarke waited by the gates as everyone streamed out, Octavia with Lincoln’s sword strapped to her back leading the way. Clarke clutched at the strap to her pack and watched them go. It was heavy on her back, but it did contain the copy of _The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_ , her sketchbook, and all the medical supplies. When the crowd inside the camp began to thin, she saw Bellamy hadn’t moved and she moved back in. As she came closer, she noticed he had a pack on his shoulder, which was a good sign.

“You did good here, Bellamy,” she said.

“18 dead.”

“82 alive,” she said. “You did good.”

He nodded twice, almost to himself and picked up a bucket of water to put the fire out. As he came back, he took her hand in his and squeezed it before raising his rifle.

She stuck close to his side as they left the camp. He stuck to the center of the group, letting Octavia lead the way. They honestly weren’t that far from the dropship when they stopped, Octavia halting them silently.

And then Jasper yelled, “Grounders!”

The rush back to the camp was both panic inducing and panic fueled. As soon as everyone was inside, including poor Drew, Clarke climbed up on the wall next to Bellamy to look out at the woods.

“Where are they? Why aren’t they attacking?” he asked.

Clarke looked out and suddenly realized what had happened. “Because we’re doing exactly what they wanted us to do.”

“What are you talking about?” Bellamy asked.

Clarke turned, looking for Octavia. “Lincoln said the scouts would be the first to arrive.”

“Well, if it’s just the scouts we can fight our way out,” Octavia said. “That’s what Lincoln would do.”

“We’re done doing what that Grounder would do,” Bellamy said, jumping down from the walkway. “We tried it and now Drew is dead. You want to be next?”

“That Grounder saved our lives,” Finn said. “I agree with Octavia. For all we know there’s only one scout out there.”

“One scout with incredibly good aim,” Jasper pointed out.

“Clarke, we can still do this,” Octavia said, looking up at her pleadingly.

Clarke just tried to catch her breath and looked out over their people. “Looking to you, princess,” Bellamy said. She had a feeling he only called her that to annoy her. “What’s it gonna be?” Everyone not manning the walls was looking at her. “Run and get picked off out in the open or stand and fight back?”

She looked out over their people. Most of them looked terrified. She turned to look out in the woods, scanning and finding nothing. She turned back and hopped down from the walkway.

“Clarke,” Finn said, grabbing her arm. “If we’re still here when Tristan gets here—”

“Lincoln said ‘scouts.’ More than one. He said, ‘Get home before the scouts arrive.’ Finn, they’re already here.” She turned to Bellamy and nodded.

“Okay then,” Bellamy called out. “This is what we’ve been preparing for. Kill them before they kill us. Gunners, to your posts.” The group dispersed and Bellamy continued shouting orders. “Use the tunnels to get in and out. From now on, the gate stays closed.”

He darted after Octavia who was headed towards a tunnel after the others. After a few seconds of conversation that Clarke couldn’t hear, he let her go. Clarke moved over to him. “So how the hell do we do this?”

“Inside the dropship,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulled her after him.

Once inside in front of the map table, Bellamy laid it out. “We’ve got 25 rifles with 20 rounds each, give or take. Roughly 500 rounds of ammo. While you two were gone, we made some improvements. Thanks to Raven, the gully’s mined.”

“Partially mined,” Raven said. “Thanks to Murphy.”

“Still, it’s the main route in. If the Grounders use it, we’ll know. She also built grenades,” Bellamy said, lifting one. Clarke shook her head.

“It’s not many,” she said.

“Again. Thank you, Murphy,” was Raven’s response.

“We’ll make them count,” Bellamy said. “If the Grounders make it through the front gate, guns and grenades should force them back.”

“And then?” Clarke asked, but Bellamy didn’t answer.

“We close the door and pray,” Raven said.

“And pray what?” Clarke asked. “That the ship keeps them out? Because it won’t.” She turned to Bellamy.

“Then let’s not let them get through the gate,” he said before lifting his walkie. “All foxholes listen up. Keep your eyes and ears open. Inflict casualties, as many as possible. You can hold them off long enough to make them turn back. That’s the plan.”

“That’s always your plan,” Finn said. “Just like the bomb at the bridge.”

Clarke stared at the map, a plan forming in her head.

“Damn right,” Bellamy said. “You got a better idea?”

She actually did. But it couldn’t be that simple. She turned to Raven. “You said there’s fuel in those rockets, right? Enough to build a hundred bombs?”

“I also said we’ve got no gunpowder left,” Raven said.

“I don’t want to build a bomb. I want to blast off.”

Raven smiled. “Draw them in close, fire the rockets. A ring of fire.”

“Barbecued Grounders,” Bellamy said. “I like it.”

“Will it work?” Finn asked Raven.

Raven thought for a second. “The wiring’s a mess down there, but yeah. You give me enough time and I’ll cook them real good.”

“You can’t go down there,” Clarke told her. “You’ll need to dictate to me and Finn. Finn, you get started. I’ll be back in a minute.” She grabbed Bellamy’s wrist and pulled him outside the dropship. “New plan!” she shouted out and the kids turned to look at them. “We’re going to fire the engines! Get everything we can salvage into the dropship!”

“Like what?” Harper asked.

“Anything flammable,” Bellamy said. “The tents, the food, the furs, literally all of it that’ll fit.”

“Guards, keep watch!” Miller shouted as Clarke led Bellamy towards their tent. “Everybody else, start breaking it down! Start with the food!”

The thin tent walls didn’t do anything to keep the frantic chaos of the camp out, but it was some bit of privacy. And there was something she needed to tell him, and she didn’t want to do it in front of everyone else.

“It’s a good plan,” he said when she stopped.

“I got Drew killed,” she said. “We should have stayed. Raven would’ve had more time to work on the rockets.”

“You didn’t get Drew killed,” Bellamy said and pulled her into his arms. Her eyes stung. “The Grounders did.”

“I got us to leave,” Clarke said.

“Will you stay inside the dropship?” he asked. “We’re going to have wounded and…for me.”

“I’ll try,” Clarke said. “I’ve got to help get the rockets up and running. But I can’t promise it.”

“I want you safe,” Bellamy said fiercely.

“I want you safe, too. Bellamy,” she said, looking up. “I know we’re not…okay right now, and I don’t know how today’s going to end.”

“Are you going to end of the world confession me right now?” Bellamy asked, smirking at her.

“Well not anymore,” Clarke said, trying to push out of his arms.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said softly. “What did you want to tell me?”

Clarke frowned and then sighed. She looked up at him and said, “I love you.”

Bellamy smiled, a real one that at least temporarily took the darkness in his eyes away. “I love you too.” He kissed her softly and sweetly. “Please stay safe. Now go help Raven so we can save our people.”

“I got my sketchbook and your books in my pack,” she said.

“You grabbed _The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_?” he asked.

“Of course I did,” she said, shrugging. “You’ve been reading them when I’m not here. Your bookmark keeps moving. You don’t have to stop reading when I show up.”

“I’d rather spend time with you when you’re here,” he said. “It’s not like we have a lot of time where it’s just us. And I’ve already read them multiple times.” 

She blushed and dragged him down into a kiss. “Please be safe,” she murmured when she pulled back slightly. “Just come back to me.” She turned and headed for the tent’s entrance.

“Do not go where I cannot follow,” he said.

She turned to look at him. “We’ve moved from mythology to fantasy literature?” she asked. “And I’m pretty sure the line is ‘Don’t go where I can’t follow.’”

“My way sounds better,” he shrugged.

Things never went smoothly for them, and it looked like the universe wasn’t going to let them have this either. Raven was dying from internal bleeding, the wiring was a goddam mess, Finn ran to Lincoln’s home for a clotting agent, the younger kids were terrified, and they were running out of storage space on the second floor of the dropship. Thanks to Murphy, the third floor wasn’t an option if they were going to fire off the engines. By the time the Grounder army finally arrived, Finn hadn’t come back yet, and Clarke still hadn’t found the ignition for the rockets. She knew Bellamy was out there, she could hear him over the walkies. She was scared, bordering on terrified, that her plan wasn’t going to work. Or worse, that it would work but she’d lose Bellamy anyways.

When the Grounders were almost at the gate, Raven had passed out, and Jasper was down splicing wires together, Clarke headed out to take control. Bellamy was nowhere to be seen within the walls of the camp. The muffled sound of an explosion rang out from above and Clarke looked up, dread pooling in her stomach.

“Is that from the Ark?” Fox asked.

“That _is_ the Ark,” Clarke said. The one brightly burning spot split and shattered into small explosions of fire. Not all the pieces exploded though. Some seemed to stay together, but survivors weren’t going to be able to help them now. There were calls in the woods, different from the Grounders. The gunners on the walls looked around in confusion and fear. Finn ran into the camp through a foxhole and announced that he’d brought the Reapers to them. Inside the dropship as she injected Raven with the clotting agent, the kids were terrified. Things outside sounded they were getting worse.

Miller ran inside and urgently said, “Clarke! They’re taking down the gate!”

“Good,” Jasper said, popping up through the hatch. “Because I did it…I think.”

There was an almighty crash from outside and Clarke knew that the gate was down. “I’m closing that door,” Miller said, pointing behind him.

“Wait,” Clarke ordered. “We still have people out there. Bellamy’s not back yet.” She rushed out of the dropship. “Alright!” she shouted. “Jasper did it! Get everybody, get inside now!” She didn’t even think or consider the fact that she was an excellent target standing in plain view on the ramp until Finn shoved her down and away.

Finn pointed and shouted, “There he is!”

Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Bellamy standing in one of the foxhole entrances. But there was a lot of open ground between the two of them. “He’s never going to make it. Bellamy run!” she shouted, and he started moving, picking up a gun from one of the bodies on the ground.

But Tristan reached Bellamy before he could reach her, and Clarke could only watch in horror as Tristan attacked. Then Finn ran out at Tristan to save Bellamy. Next to her, Miller said something about not being able to save everyone, but she could only stare at Bellamy, frozen. He looked up, made eye contact with her, and then shouted, “Miller, get her inside!”

Miller grabbed her around the waist and yanked, pulling her away. “No!” she shouted and tried to fight Miller’s hold. Miller swore and yanked harder. He managed to pull her away, dragging her back to the dropship. Her eyes, locked on Bellamy’s, filled with tears.

‘I love you,’ he mouthed as Miller pulled her into the dropship.

“Hold her,” Miller said to someone as he pulled her in, but she’d stopped fighting. Tears silently fell down her cheeks as he pulled the lever to close the door, but barely a second later Anya tumbled in.

Though it killed her, as soon as the door was sealed, Clarke said, “Jasper, now!” He hit the switch, but nothing happened. He looked up at her, horrified. She looked back at Anya, desperate. “Anya, you can’t win.” Outside, the Grounders smashed against the dropship. She could only hope that they were giving Bellamy, Finn, and their friends enough time to get away. Inside the ship, the kids holding weapons got ready.

Then Anya lunged and Miller smacked her in the back of the head with his rifle and knocked her down. “Kill her!” someone shouted, and the others jumped in, hitting and kicking at Anya.

“Stop it!” Clarke shouted and waded in, trying to break up the one-sided attack. “She’s already down!” A few others began shouting to stop as well. She managed to get everyone back except Miller and she grabbed his wrist before he could stab Anya.

She looked around at the rest of the group. “We are _not_ Grounders.”

The floor shook as she could hear and feel the rockets go off. Her heart felt like it cracked, knowing Bellamy was still out there. She could only hope and hope that he’d made it far enough away. But Tristan could have killed both him and Finn by now too.

The more levelheaded of the group got Anya tied up and shoved her in a corner while they all regrouped. Clarke found a corner of her own and sunk down in it, knees up to her chest. Tears continued to fall down her face. She could see a few people glance over at her, but they left her alone. 24 hours ago, she’d been in bed with Bellamy and now he might be dead. She was allowed to grieve.

Eventually Miller sank down next to her. “Hey. Raven seems to be doing okay. Jasper thinks it’ll take a few hours for things to cool down enough outside for us to open the door. Manny says he’ll check how hot the hatch to the third floor is every half an hour just to give us a baseline.” Clarke just nodded. “I did a head count. There’s only 49 of us here.” Hours ago, they’d had 82. “Hey,” Miller said. “Bellamy and Finn may have made it out. There was time and they were by one of the tunnels. And I didn’t see Octavia or Monroe anywhere.”

“Sure,” Clarke said, and it sounded hollow even to her own ears.

Miller sat there silently for a few minutes. “I don’t,” he started, but paused. “I don’t know how you’re feeling exactly, but I can guess. Here,” he said, and she looked over to see him pull the collar of his shirt to the side. A small, delicate tulip sat horizontally just below the line of his shoulder. “I saw it on Monty’s wrist the first day. I just didn’t say anything because I was scared. And I’ll never get to say anything now.” He looked at her and his eyes were wet. “So just, for my sake, we gotta hope Bellamy’s out there. I think I’m only second in command material anyways. So, he’s got to be out there to take over again.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke said.

They spent the night like that, next to one another as Clarke cried off and on, both grieving their soulmates.

In the morning the hatch to the third floor had cooled and Jasper guessed the ground outside was cool enough that they could open the doors. The only person who really could have known was Raven, but she was unconscious still. Clarke stood, stiff from being hunched over all night, eyes sore and swollen. Miller rose next to her, wincing. “Got punched,” he said, shrugging slightly. “Hurts like a mother.” They made their way over to the dropship’s door. “You ready?” he asked her quietly.

She nodded, though she really wasn’t, and released the lever to open the door. She was just as terrified as when Bellamy opened the door the first day. Instead of toxic air and radiation levels, she was terrified to find him out there. As soon as the door opened a crack, she knew none of them were ready for what was out there, and they wouldn’t be able to live at the dropship anymore. 

It was worse than the wreckage of the Exodus ship. The air smelled burnt, of burnt wood and flesh and bone. It would be a miracle if the engines hadn’t sparked a fire all the way out to the lake they’d found. The door opened fully, showing the full horror of what they had done. There were burnt skeletons surrounding the dropship and others that looked like they’d been running away from the rockets but had been caught in the blast anyways. Her stomach roiled at the thought of Bellamy and Finn. Some of those bodies, she knew, were their fallen friends. The trees had fared better than she thought given how hot the engines burned. She was surprised to see some of the wall was still standing. But no matter how much was still standing, the smell wasn’t ever going to go away.

They spilled out of the dropship, a few of the teenagers whispering quietly in horror to one another, but Clarke just felt numb. Jasper hauled a very injured Anya out and Miller surveyed the damage with a frown. Terra and Caliana stayed inside the dropship with Raven just in case. Clarke was pretty sure that if “in case” happened there wasn’t going to be anything she could do. They didn’t have the resources and she didn’t have the skills for a full-scale surgery to remove a bullet and possibly repair any internal damage.

Something clattered to the ground at Clarke’s feet and she looked down to see a canister. Orange smoke started to waft out of it as other canisters clattered down around them.

“Mountain men,” Anya said. The fear evident in her voice alarmed Clarke more than the canisters did.

The other kids began coughing and falling over as Clarke dropped first to her knees, and then sideways. Her head felt hazy, but she forced herself to look towards the open hole where the gate used to be. People in full body suits and gas masks streamed through, armed with rifles complete with laser sights that cut through the orange smoke filling the air. The last thought she had was _Bellamy better be fucking alive to get us out of this_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus we end Season 1!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Didn't mean to take a week off!

When she’d collapsed to the ground, she’d anticipated waking up restrained an in some kind of cell. Or not waking up at all. She hadn’t even remotely anticipated waking up in a white room on an actual bed with an actual pillow. Her mind felt muzzy and her body felt clean. She hadn’t felt properly clean since she was on the Ark. And it was so quiet in the room. She could hear the buzzing of the lights but barely anything else.

She’d never been anywhere that was this quiet. The Ark had been a constant hum of machinery and air scrubbers. In camp there had always been noise, whether it was the sound of other kids or the sound of bugs and animals.

The lack of noise was disorienting.

Everything was disorienting.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed – medical cot rather than a proper bed now that she noticed – and flinched back when her bare feet touched the cold floor. She looked down and noticed there was a needle in her arm, hooking her up to a bag of something.

She yanked the needle out carelessly – somewhere faintly in the back of her head she could hear her mother exclaiming at that – and looked around the room. Her eyes were drawn to the only spot of color, which made her pause.

Was that _Starry Night_?

What was this place?

She got off of the bed, prepared for the cold flooring. She moved over to the door and the large black ball stuck into the ceiling over it. There was a small, round window in the door and she peered through it. To her utter shock and surprise, she saw Monty in a room similar to her own across the hall.

“Clarke?” he said, looking equally shocked. His voice was muffled between the two windows.

“Monty!” she shouted and tried the handle on the door. She jiggled it furiously, but it refused to move. It looked like Monty tried his door as well but it seemed to be locked too.

As she looked across at Monty, the wall next to his door drew her attention. ‘Mount Weather Quarantine Ward’ a sign read. And underneath it, bags and vials of blood.

Anya had said mountain men. Lincoln had said the mountain was coming for them.

Mountain men. Mount Weather.

_Fuck._

She and Monty tried to talk to one another through the windows, but it was muffled and hard to understand one another. She tried to explain what had happened after he went missing and he asked who survived the battle, but beyond a handful of people she really didn’t know. She’d been too wrapped up in her own grief to look to the others. Monty did perk up when she told him that Jasper was alive and then a small smile when she mentioned Miller. Clarke hoped that they’d get the chance to talk to one another.

Eventually Monty needed to sleep, though he was reluctant to leave the window. Clarke stood at the window for a while longer and watched him lay on the bed and fall asleep. She could admit to herself it was creepy, but she thought he was dead, and she had no idea where anyone else was. After a while she grew tired herself. Instead of going back to the bed, or even the couch, she sat in the corner of the room against the wall.

Sitting there, the floor cold against her butt, she realized she wasn’t as muzzy as when she’d woken up. Whatever drugs they’d been pumping into her through the IV must have worn off. She looked down at the dried blood on her arm and idly thought about washing it off with the sink but didn’t care enough to actually do it. This place was just so sterile – and not necessarily in a good way.

She looked around the room again, baffled by the Van Gogh painting or copy or whatever it was. The black ball in the ceiling was probably surveillance and it didn’t look like there was a single spot in the room she could hide from it unless she started moving furniture around. Someone was watching her.

Someone was watching her and someone had _changed her clothes_. She was definitely wearing a different bra given that it seemed to fit better and she was pretty sure she was wearing different underwear too. She tugged the neckline of her tank top away a bit to reveal an equally pristine white bra underneath. The bruise Bellamy had left on her breast was still there, but fading. She pressed fingers against her soulmark and felt the dull ache of the bruises there. She couldn’t bring herself to check if her underwear was actually different, but it felt different enough and softer that she could tell it was different. Someone had seen her naked and she hadn’t been aware of it. She felt deeply unsettled by that and wrapped her arms around herself.

She missed Bellamy and the feeling of his arms around her desperately. Her chest ached with missing him.

Eventually, face buried in her knees, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep. She dreamt of fire, the Grounder warrior she killed, of Atom and Charlotte, of Murphy hanging Bellamy and succeeding, of just about every horrifying thing she’d seen or could imagine.

She woke up suddenly, head jerking up. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but her mouth tasted stale, which meant it could have been anywhere from a couple of hours to a lot longer. Her watch was gone, just like the rest of her things, but the spot where her IV had been inserted was scabbed over. No one had come in while she was sleeping, either to reinsert the IV or to bring food. She wouldn’t have eaten it, no matter that she didn’t remember when the last time she ate was. Miller had tried to give her some jerky, but she hadn’t taken any. He’d even said, “Bellamy would want you to eat,” but she’d just glared at him, wounded.

She blinked back tears and stood, looking around the room in more detail. That couldn’t be the real _Starry, Starry Night_. It had been in New York City before the bombs went off. They were in what used to be Virginia. It couldn’t possibly have survived 97 years.

None of this made any sense.

She glanced over, to the door again, and the breath caught in her chest. Across the hallway, Monty’s door was open, and she couldn’t see him anywhere. Someone in a blue suit and an opaque face mask appeared in her field of vision on the other side of the door. Even though she couldn’t see them, they were definitely looking at her.

“Hey,” she said, but the figure ignored her and turned to Monty’s room. She shouted and pounded on the door as the figure started spraying down Monty’s room with something. They didn’t respond, didn’t turn, didn’t react in any way at all.

She barely thought, just acted. Grab the IV pole, smash the surveillance ball, smash the glass, open the door, find Monty. It wasn’t a plan, she wasn’t going to call it that, and she hadn’t _planned_ on slicing up her arm. She didn’t expect that the figure in the suit was a girl who looked her age and she sure as hell didn’t expect her to find a dining hall full of people in fancier clothing than she’d ever seen eating breakfast with _piano accompaniment_.

The guards took her down to a medical facility. A doctor came in while the guards kept their weapons trained on her. The man made no eye contact with her and didn’t even try to speak with her. She wasn’t going to say anything until she had more information. She just took everything in as the doctor stitched her arm up. There were actual medical supplies here and machines she didn’t recognize. The Ark had intended for them to land _here_. But they hadn’t anticipated survivors here, just supplies.

What was going on?

Everyone she’d seen so far looked like the direct opposite of the Grounders. They had a fucking piano and she was pretty sure one older lady had been wearing pearls. _Pearls_. Why would anyone save pearls when the world was ending? And how had they gotten a Van Gogh from New York City to Virginia before the bombs had gone off?

Once the doctor finished with her arm, the guards strapped her wrists into restraints at the foot of the bed she was sitting on and left her alone. She immediately started struggling to get out of them, but she was stuck tight.

The door opened again and two men with pistols on their hips walked in. They weren’t dressed like the men that had brought her here. Guards instead of soldiers then? A woman in a lab coat followed them in and then an older man, more guards, and the young woman she’d taken hostage. 

“Hello Clarke,” the woman said kindly. Clarke assumed she was another doctor. “How is your arm?” Clarke wondered how they knew her name. Had they been watching the camp like Lincoln had? Or had they spoken to her friends? “Not much of a talker, is she?” she said to the older man as if Clarke wasn’t sitting right there in front of them.

“A skill picked up from the savages, no doubt,” the man said in response.

_Savages? The Grounders aren’t savages_.

“That’s fine. Maya has something to say to you anyways,” the man continued.

The girl hovered behind the man, hands clasped together and looked skittish, but also angry. “You were the next one to be cleared through quarantine,” she said. Her feet stayed firmly planted, but she leaned forward as if she was trying to show she wasn’t scared of Clarke. “Another ten minutes and you would have—” The man cleared his throat and Maya visibly reigned herself in. “I’m not pressing charges,” Maya finished.

What? _Pressing charges_?

“Thank you, Maya,” the man said. “You can get your treatment now.”

“Okay, let’s go,” the doctor said, and Maya went with her. “Bed three.”

“Restraints aren’t necessary,” the man said to one of the guards.

“Yes, Mr. President,” the guard said, and he moved to undo them.

Again, what?

The president leaned down to her. “Dante Wallace,” he said, holding out a hand. She shook it and noticed there were smudges on his fingers. “Oil paint,” he chuckled. “That’s right. You’re an artist too.”

She stood. “Who told you that?” she asked.

“Your people did,” Dante said and Clarke immediately felt a surge of relief jumbled together with a surge of suspicion. “They also said you were their leader. Looks like you and I have a lot of things in common, kiddo.”

Yeah, the patronizing was not endearing her to this man. “Where’s my watch?” she asked instead.

“I’m sorry,” President Wallace said, but his apology seemed insincere. “But we can’t let contaminated items inside Mount Weather. We couldn’t risk it. Our protocol is very strict, Clarke.”

_Then how the hell do you have a Van Gogh or a Van Gogh knock off in here?_ she thought.

A couple of beds down the doctor had hooked Maya up to some sort of machine, presumably for her treatment.

“We prioritize safety over sentimentality,” President Wallace finished. The art, piano, and pearls told a different story in Clarke’s opinion.

“How many of us did you capture?” Clarke asked.

“48, including you,” President Wallace said, and Clarke’s heart sank. Raven. “But Clarke, you’ve got it wrong,” he continued. “You’re not prisoners. We saved you.”

“Well, in that case, you won’t mind if we leave,” Clarke said firmly. “If there are 48 of us here, we still have people out there.” Maybe Bellamy and Finn had made it. And Octavia too.

“The patrol brought in who they could find,” President Wallace said. Which didn’t make sense actually now that she thought about it. Raven wasn’t dead. Terra had specifically stayed in the dropship because Raven _wasn’t_ dead. They should’ve found _49_ people in the dropship. “What about the Ark?” she asked instead. “It came down last night.”

“We saw it,” President Wallace said. “There were multiple crash sites over one hundred square miles. If there _were_ survivors, we will bring them in too. You have my word.”

“I want to see my people,” she said. She needed to talk to Terra. She needed to find Miller and Monty, though not for soulmate reasons.

“Course you do,” President Wallace said. “I would too.” He turned towards the door and two of the guards there rolled a chest over. They opened it to reveal clothes, stunning Clarke. The clothes looked incredibly well cared for and there were shoes and jewelry too. Safety over sentimentality definitely seemed bogus. “Change and meet me in the hall,” President Wallace said before turning. “Come on, let’s give Clarke some privacy.” As he left the guards followed him out so that it was just her and Maya, but Maya was looking the other way.

Clarke moved closer to the chest and couldn’t help but run her fingers over the jewelry. Were those real pearls? Were those diamonds? The high heels in the case intrigued her. The heel wouldn’t make much of a weapon, but it would do for now. She chose the least flashy, most comfortable and practical clothes in the chest. Sneakers, a t shirt, comfortable pants, and a jacket. She wasn’t going to put on a beaded dress if they had to fight their way out. She got confirmation that someone had changed her into new underwear when she took her shorts off and took a few seconds just to breathe through the shudder that went down her spine. She pressed the bruises on her hip and finished getting dressed.

As she stepped out into the hall President Wallace was saying, “Okay, just take care of it,” and one of the guards walked away. “Sorry about the noise,” he said to her, gesturing to his ears. Honestly the noise wasn’t that bad compared to some parts of the Ark. “Hydroelectric power from Philpott Dam. Fresh water from our underground reservoir.” Clarke didn’t say anything as President Wallace pointed things out to her. If he wanted to tell her things that could be potentially useful to escape, so be it. “Fresh food from our hydroponic farm.”

“I don’t understand,” she finally said. “You’re on the ground. You know it’s survivable. Why would you stay here?”

“It’s not survivable for us,” President Wallace said.

“The Grounders seem to have managed.”

“Natural selection works,” he shrugged. “The Grounders who couldn’t survive in the radiation didn’t. Those who could passed on their DNA.” As they continued to walk, Clarke took in every detail she could in case they did have to force their way out. “For better or for worse, here, we never went through that process.”

“Neither did we,” Clarke said. “We’ve been on the ground now for,” she trailed off. “Solar radiation.”

“Very good,” President Wallace said, which sounded pretty condescending. “Your DNA ran the same gauntlet as the Grounders. Only because radiation levels in space are even higher, your ability to metabolize that radiation is even stronger. Truth be told,” he said, stopping, “our scientists were blown away by the efficiency of your systems.”

That was a deeply unsettling statement. What had they done to Monty? What had they done to the others? What tests did they run on her and the others? What was that orange smoke and what drugs had been in the IV?

“If not for that,” President Wallace said, “your friends would still be upstairs in quarantine.”

She didn’t trust President Wallace, she didn’t trust any of this, especially when he made her give the makeshift weapon back. “You made it,” he said. “Welcome to Mount Weather.”

The guards took her down one level in an elevator. Which did momentarily delight her. The Ark didn’t have any elevators. When she exited the elevator, she could hear a woman’s voice talking about packets on Mount Weather. She looked back at the stoic guards and followed the voice to a room absolutely covered in ornate paintings. Where the hell had those come from? There was a group of kids standing with their backs to her and hope bloomed in her chest.

Then Monty said her name and rushed for her, all but tackling her into a hug. She couldn’t help but smile as the others rushed her, clearly overjoyed to see her. Terra caught her eye and tried to sign something at her, but Clarke had never really picked up the Ark’s version of sign language so she could only shrug apologetically. She scanned the crowd, but she couldn’t see Miller anywhere. Jasper hovered at the outer edge of the group and looked away from her as soon as her eyes landed on him. 

The woman who’d been speaking stepped through the group surrounding Clarke, distracting her from Jasper. “Welcome, Clarke,” she said, holding out a binder – a binder! – of papers to her. “If you have any questions, I’m Keenan.” She headed back to the front of the room to continue her talk.

Clarke opened the binder and found a map of Mount Weather on the front page.

She looked up from it as the woman continued her speech, but Clarke tuned her out. “Where’s Miller?” she asked Monty.

“He’s in surgery. Something about his appendix,” Monty said. “Or his spleen? Maybe both?”

“He said he’d been punched,” Clarke said. Was it really his appendix or his spleen or were they keeping him for some other reason? If it was either organ, he would have died at the dropship. If she couldn’t operate to remove a bullet, she wouldn’t have been able to perform a splenectomy or an appendectomy. “There’s 48 of us here.”

“Yeah,” Monty said. “I, uh, Jasper told me about Bellamy.” He glanced over to where Jasper was standing.

“I – I left him,” she said. “He made Miller drag me in.” Monty’s expression went soft and he reached out to take her hand. “There was enough time. He was – he could’ve gotten away. Finn went after him.” In all the studies done on soulmates, nobody had ever come to conclusive proof that a soulmate could tell when the other died. Marks didn’t go dark or disappear when the other died. There were romanticized stories and a few cases, but there had always been cases where someone knew without a shadow of a doubt the moment someone they loved had died. There also wasn’t anything to say that a soulmate knew when the other _wasn’t_ dead either. She didn’t know if the feeling within her chest was just hope or certainty that he wasn’t dead, that he was outside the mountain looking for her.

Monty looked like he was about to say something, but Keenan called out, “Time for lunch. Let’s head to the dining hall, everyone.”

They trooped through the halls of the compound and Clarke tried to look at any doors and hallways to map the place out in her mind. If President Wallace didn’t want them to leave, she was going to have to figure out how to get them all out.

She didn’t take any food, though she looked it over. It was much better than what they’d had on the Ark, but she didn’t want any of it. The piano accompaniment for lunch was ridiculous and she rolled her eyes when she walked by the piano. She made her way to where Jasper and Monty were sitting. As soon as she sat down, Jasper seemed to fold in on himself and Monty offered her chocolate cake. 

“I’m not eating their food,” she said, flipping through the binder. She looked over at Dante at the top table. “Look,” she said, pointing to the map in the binder. “They gave us a map with no exits. I need you to tell me everything you’ve seen. Every room.” Monty and Jasper looked warily at her. “Every hallway. Every way out.”

“Way out?” Jasper asked. “Look around you, Clarke. There’s no one hunting us here. First time in our lives we’re not hungry. Why would we leave?”

“Because we have friends out there who need our help,” Clarke said firmly. Jasper looked at her uneasily.

“They’re looking for survivors,” Monty said. “And they’re way better equipped to find them than we are.”

“This place is too good to be true,” Clarke said.

Jasper swallowed heavily. “I – I’m sorry. Clarke, I don’t think anyone…” He trailed off and looked away before suddenly shoving back from the table. “I’m gonna get more cake.”

Clarke watched him walk over to the buffet. “He feels really bad,” Monty said.

“About what?” Clarke asked. Maya walked over to Jasper and they began talking.

“Clarke, he thinks he killed Bellamy,” Monty said gently. She looked to him, surprised. “He pressed the button that set off the rockets.”

“I told him to,” Clarke said. “I’m the one that left Bellamy outside. Miller dragged me in, but I’d stopped fighting. _I_ made the call.” She looked over to Jasper. “I did it. I killed all those Grounders. And Bellamy isn’t dead.”

“Clarke,” Monty started.

“He can’t be,” she said and pushed back from the table to head over towards Jasper. He looked happy, happier than she’d seen him in days, as he chatted with Maya at their own private table. “Hey,” she said when she reached them and the soft, hesitant smile Maya had been directing at Jasper dropped. “It’s Maya, right? I just wanted to say sorry, for this morning. I was scared and worried about my friends. I hope you can understand that.” Clarke set her binder down on the table right on top of Maya’s keycard and looked at Jasper. “And Jasper –”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, eyes going shiny with unshed tears. “I’m sorry. I killed him.” Maya looked back at him in confusion. “I don’t – I’m so sorry and nothing I’ll ever do will make up for it.”

“Jasper, I told you to press the button,” she said. “And I don’t think he’s dead. Finn went after him, they had enough time to get away since the rockets didn’t ignite immediately.”

“But I – he’s your _soulmate_ and I _killed_ him,” Jasper said. Maya looked very confused as she glanced between the two of them.

“Jasper,” she said, reaching out to take his hand, blinking back tears of her own as she thought about that last image she had of Bellamy. “He told Miller to get me back in the dropship. He knew what was going to happen and Finn went to go help him. They had time. He’s not dead.”

Jasper looked miserable and dropped his gaze back to the table. “But I did it. I didn’t even know he wasn’t inside the dropship with us.”

“It’s okay. Jasper, there’s nothing to forgive. It’s okay,” Clarke said. He nodded without looking up and she picked her binder back up, swiping the keycard underneath with it. She hadn’t lied to Jasper. There wasn’t anything to forgive. She was the one who had left Bellamy and she was the one who gave the order to set the rockets off. But if their friends weren’t going to help get out of the mountain and back to the survivors and whatever remained of the Ark, she was going to get herself out.

Jasper stopped her, because of course the universe was being a pain in the ass. Because of course that’s how her day was turning out. She didn’t want to kill everyone inside the mountain, but their people were out there. The Ark had come down and any survivors were woefully unprepared for the ground. She needed to find Bellamy and Finn and anyone else who got away from the dropship before everything burned.

Jasper didn’t need to say that Bellamy would want her safe whether or not he was outside of the mountain, though. It wasn’t fair of him to try and use that against her, not when she was so keenly aware of his absence and how _he_ wasn’t safe out there. And while it might have been true, she certainly didn’t feel safe inside of Mount Weather. The _Grounders_ were afraid of it. There had to be some reason for that.

_Where’s Anya_? she thought as she was arrested. _Jasper had her_.

President Wallace’s office wasn’t quite what she expected, but based on everything she’d seen of the mountain so far, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything seemed to be covered in artwork. Which honestly made no sense. All of these paintings and works of art would have needed to be in the mountain before the bombs went off. Paper was notorious for holding onto radiation. And why would this one bunker in the mountains of Virginia have this collection? And, if she was remembering from all the art books she’d read on the Ark, a collection that spanned multiple galleries on multiple continents.

What had Mount Weather been 100 years ago? Had it been a haven for the wealthy and important only? Why was there so much stuff that didn’t seem important? Why was there a piano in the dining hall? Who had thought a piano was important 100 years ago?

President Wallace was painting with his back to her when she was dragged into his office, and she felt it was a 50-50 split on whether or not it was supposed to tempt her. It wasn’t tempting despite how much she wanted to paint. She didn’t want to paint with _his_ things.

“Lose the handcuffs,” was the first thing he said, not even turning from the canvas to look at her. When the cuffs were off, he said, “There’s a blank canvas if you’d like.”

Ah, temptation then. “I used to paint the ground too,” she said but didn’t move.

“It’s not just the ground,” President Wallace said.

“You’ve been outside?” she asked, surprised.

“Yes. 56 years ago, for five minutes,” he said, sounding bitter. “I was seven when the first of what we call the Outsiders appeared. Before that, we thought _we_ were all there was. Imagine our surprise.”

“I don’t have to imagine,” Clarke said, thinking back to a spear protruding from Jasper’s chest.

“My father – this was his office at the time – believed that it meant the Earth was survivable again. And so, he opened the doors. Within a week 54 people were dead from the exposure. My mother and sister among them.” He finally turned to her. “Loss…Pain, regret. Time eases these things, Clarke. But the only time it’s ever truly gone is when I’m painting.”

“You didn’t bring me here to talk about painting, did you?”

“I’m afraid I have bad news,” President Wallace said. “Our patrols swept the area and found no evidence of survivors. Either at your camp or from the Ark.”

No. _No_.

“How can you be sure?” she asked, shaking her head. That wasn’t possible. There would have to be some survivors from the Ark. Bellamy, Finn. Octavia had been missing. Murphy probably wasn’t dead either, not that she wanted to see him. He was a cockroach. 

“They can’t,” President Wallace said. “I’ve ordered them to keep searching.”

“I need to see for myself.” Bellamy could have left a message at the dropship, something others wouldn’t recognize. Maybe he and Finn holed up at the bunker, or the supply depot. She knew plenty of places they wouldn’t think to look.

“I’m sorry I can’t allow that. I’m doing this for your own good. It isn’t safe out there,” Wallace said.

“Radiation has no effect on us,” Clarke said firmly.

“It’s not the radiation I’m concerned about.” At his cue, the guards came back inside. “Jasper told me about Bellamy. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, and that made Clarke take a step back in shock. “Jasper said he and some of your friends were still outside the dropship when the rockets went off. You need time to grieve. These men will show you to your room.”

“And if I try to leave?”

“Please don’t test me, Clarke.”

She turned and let the men take her away. She was going to absolutely read Jasper the riot act when she saw him. There wasn’t anything to forgive about setting the rockets off, but _Jesus_ why would he tell their captors about her and Bellamy’s relationship? She’d talked about it in front of Maya, admittedly, but still.

The room she was led to was large and had tidy bunkbeds in tidy rows throughout the space. It was also empty and devoid of any of her friends. The guards closed the doors behind her, but she didn’t hear a lock engage. She looked back and couldn’t see them outside.

She thought, for a good minute about marching right back out, but she didn’t know where the dining hall was in relation to this room. She scoffed. Dining hall. So pretentious. This whole place was pretentious. Grand pianos and artwork that belonged in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, what a joke.

She tried sitting on one of the beds to bide her time until the others returned, but she was too antsy. She paced instead, up and down the rows of bunk beds. There were a few books on nightstands, which showed there was a library there. The allure of actual books wasn’t there though. The only books she wanted were her sketchbook and Bellamy’s two books back at the dropship. She hoped they were still in her pack in the medical corner where she’d dropped them.

She paced and paced and paced until she wasn’t as angry anymore. She was still mad at Jasper for telling Wallace about Bellamy, but it was a quieter anger. Most of her anger was directed at Wallace now. He was keeping them prisoners in the mountain. If they wanted to leave, they should be able to. Why were Anya and Lincoln so afraid of the mountain?

Was Jasper attacked because of Mount Weather rather than a boundary? Was it because they were celebrating reaching the mountain? They hadn’t been attacked until that point despite being watched. She and Finn thought it was the boundary, but now… It was still her fault, still the Grounders’ fault for attacking, but…she was almost grateful they hadn’t made it to Mount Weather those first few days.

She didn’t know how they would have handled this. They all would’ve gone from one prison to another. Wells would’ve been good at dealing with Wallace, negotiating. She would’ve been focused on using whatever resources the mountain had to contact the Ark. But the terrified and angry Bellamy of those first days…he wouldn’t have done well. And Octavia would never have met Lincoln.

The doors to the room pushed open and she heard Harper laughing. “Clarke,” Harper said, stopping short in the doorway. “You’re here.”

“I thought they would’ve locked you up,” Jasper said. “You tried to kill them all.”

“I didn’t know it would do that,” Clarke said. “And even if I did open the door, the fact that they don’t have redundancies and air locks to prevent an accidental radiation leak seems like a problem they should’ve solved over the last 97 years. But they won’t let us leave.”

“Why would we want to?” Jasper asked.

“Clarke,” Monty said gently. He stepped closer to her and the other delinquents came into the room, spreading out. Terra tried to catch her eye again, but Caliana dragged her away. “They said they’ll bring survivors here, to us. If they find Bellamy, they’ll bring him here. You don’t have to go out there looking for him.”

“He and Finn might be dead,” Jasper said, and Monty turned to glare at him. “They were outside. We saw the aftermath. They might have gotten away, but they might not have.”

Clarke looked away, but Monty said, “There’s no world where Clarke’s in here and Bellamy’s not outside losing his mind trying to get to her.” She looked back to Monty. “He’s out there looking for you and the rest of us, I know it. So, they’re going to find him and bring him here.” He shrugged. “You want to come check out the library? You missed that part of the tour.”

“I – okay,” Clarke said. She didn’t really want to go to the library, but she did want to see more of the compound to try and find a way out. The more information on the place she had, the better. Not that she thought she was going to find a way out in the library, but anything would help.

She tried to peer around without being too obvious as Monty led her and a few others to the library. They got lost a couple of times, but it let her see more of the compound. It was massive and she saw doors with keypads and badge scanners. She also saw what she thought were airlocks, which was interesting. Maya had made it seem like there weren’t any additional protections when she’d tried to escape earlier. But they clearly had systems to mitigate any incidents, just like the Ark had in case of a hull breach.

The library was impressive, but less impressive than what she’d imagined given all the art hanging on the walls. The room was about the size of their dorm room, with even more artwork lining the walls. The bookshelves were arranged around the center of the room. There were rugs on the floor, armchairs strewn about, and low tables.

It looked…off. She couldn’t exactly describe how it looked or felt off, but this whole place felt that way. It felt cold, but not the literal and metallic coldness of the Ark. Actually, this was probably the warmest she’d been in her entire life. The compound felt cold in a detached way. The Ark had felt cold because it was cold and a giant hunk of metal in space. Everything here was old, but she was used to old. Everything on the Ark had been well used, but well cared for. All of her clothes had always had at least one hole or carefully patched spot.

Everything here was old, but not in the same way. This felt antique, well cared for because it wasn’t used. The beaded dress she’d been offered looked _old_ , older than a century. The whole concept of the immaculate condition of things just bothered her. The fabric on the chairs in the library should be worn, the rugs should have wear patterns. She trailed her fingers along one of the shelves. Even the spines of the books should be cracked and the covers bent and torn. But no, everything seemed pristine and tidy.

“Here,” Monty said, distracting her from her thoughts. He was holding out a book to her. She flinched away from it when she read the title. _The Iliad_.

“No. No thank you,” she said. The first time she read it was going to be with Bellamy at her side. Or encouraging him to read it to her.

Monty winced. “Sorry. There’s a lot of books on art,” he suggested. “There isn’t a lot of fiction actually. The complete works of Shakespeare and some other ancient stuff. Most of it’s nonfiction though.”

She took a big book on the works of Vincent Van Gogh, still confused about the painting in her quarantine room and because it felt like a safe choice. Nothing that would require attention and something where she could keep the same page open without suspicion. She needed to think and plan an escape. Escape with 47 other people wasn’t going to be easy and she still didn’t know what Miller’s condition was.

But they were going to get out of here and to the others. She just had to play along for now.

The art supplies she found at her bunk were a pretty decent bribe, but she had other ideas in mind for them.


	16. Chapter 16

It was weird sleeping on an actual mattress again. She didn’t sleep well, missing Bellamy’s warmth and cuddle monster behavior next to her. She curled into a ball, pressed against her mark on her hip, and failed to not cry herself to sleep.

In the morning everyone seemed reluctant to leave the room aside from heading to a large, communal bathroom. The few residents of the compound that were in there seemed a little shocked and uncomfortable when Jessica just pulled her shirt off as she headed for a shower. It looked like each of the showers had their own little cubicles to change in, but Jessica clearly didn’t care. It wasn’t like the female delinquents hadn’t already seen each other naked. Clarke had been in solitary, but everyone else had bathed communally in the Skybox. It seemed like the residents of Mount Weather were a little more conservative. She wondered if she could use that to her advantage.

She didn’t shower. She had no intention of being naked in this place again. She just splashed some water on her face and brushed her teeth with the toothbrush that came in the small toiletries kit she’d been provided the day before. As she did, she stared at herself in the mirror. She looked wrecked. Her eyes were swollen – probably from crying herself to sleep – and there were bruises underneath them. She stared at her hair for a moment before realizing why it was throwing her off. Someone had washed her hair. And trimmed it. Her split ends were gone. And her hair was straight. It hadn’t been straight since the first day on Earth and the humidity frizzed it out.

_I don’t look like myself_ she thought. 

Later, but before they’d been summoned for breakfast, the doors to their room opened and Maya and Miller walked through. “Miller,” she said, relieved. He looked alright, maybe a little pale and he was holding himself carefully, but he was standing. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah. It only took what, two surgeries?” he asked, looking at Maya. Two surgeries? Nobody had said there were multiple surgeries. And it shouldn’t have been necessary for an appendectomy or a splenectomy unless something had gone very wrong. He looked up at Clarke. “I hear you’re fitting right in.”

She glanced over at Maya, who avoided eye contact and handed Miller a bottle of pills. “Twice a day. Don’t forget. He’ll be okay in a few days,” she said before Jasper drew her away slightly and started awkwardly flirting with her.

Monty hovered nearby, staring at Miller awkwardly. Miller was trying not to stare at him but was failing pretty miserably. Clarke assumed someone had told him that Monty was there before he’d walked into the room. Otherwise she assumed he would have had more of a reaction to seeing his soulmate for the first time since he’d gone missing.

“Why’d you have two surgeries?” Clarke asked.

“My appendix,” he said. “Then I had a blood clot in my leg because of the first surgery.”

Clarke let out a heavy breath. She wouldn’t have been able to save him at the dropship. If they hadn’t been kidnapped, he would’ve died, and Monty would never know about his soulmate and Miller would never know Monty was alive. 

An alarm blared and Clarke looked up to the ceiling and then to Maya, who began to rush off. Clarke hopped down from her bunk and stopped her. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“That signal means a surface patrol is back and they need medical attention. I have to go to quarantine,” Maya said and started running.

Clarke started to follow after, but Jasper grabbed her hand. “Hey, Clarke, what are you doing?”

“Maybe they found survivors. If our people are hurt, we have a right to know.”

“Pretty sure we shouldn’t go wandering around,” Jasper said, but she ran, and he followed after her. They found a group, including Maya, suiting up. She heard one of the men talking about the condition of two people.

“What attacked them?” she demanded.

“What are they doing here?” the man asked Maya.

Clarke turned and snatched a badge from the man behind her and darted off.

“Hey! It’s not safe!” the man shouted after her.

“It is for us,” she said and opened the door. “Let’s go, Jasper.”

The other side of the door looked more like an art gallery than a quarantine wing. Clarke ignored Jasper as he urged her to slow down. “Stop pushing so hard! These people are—”

“Are lying to us,” Clarke said as she saw the body. “That’s a bullet wound. Grounders don’t use guns.”

“Unless Grounders got the guns from us,” Jasper said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

“I don’t think so,” Clarke said. “I think our people are alive out there.”

Behind them the doctor woman said, “Get them out of here,” harshly and firmly. Following after her, others in hazmat suits helped support a man who was covered in radiation burns into the room. Another person grabbed both her and Jasper and all but dragged them out of the room and out of the quarantine wing.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Jasper said.

She probably should have tried to demand answers from President Wallace during breakfast, but she did. And when Dr. Tsing showed her the body with a wound that clearly wasn’t from a bullet but an arrow, she was confused for only a second. Then she realized they had changed the injury. They were lying to her and she had to act like she was convinced.

Back in their room, everyone looked at her as she walked in and kept watching as she walked to the back where her bunk was. “What did President Wallace say?” Jasper asked quietly over by her bed. Miller was laying on his bottom bunk next to them reading.

“He showed me Shaw’s body. It looked like an arrow wound.” She kept her voice low just like Jasper.

“Maybe because it is an arrow wound,” Jasper said.

“Or that’s what they want us to think,” she said. Jasper looked like he didn’t believe her. “What? They could have doctored it.”

“Clarke,” Jasper said. “You sound like a crazy person. Why do you want to screw this up for us?”

“I don’t know what _this_ is,” she hissed at him.

“This is…safe. This is food, a real bed, clothes. My personal favorite – not getting speared by Grounders,” Jasper said. Clarke could understand Jasper’s points, but something felt wrong here. “And how long do you think they’ll let us stay here if you keep this up? Look, we’re guests here, not prisoners. What would you do with a guest who kept calling you a liar? Generally acted like an ungrateful ass.”

“I’d kick their ungrateful ass out,” Miller said from the bed behind them.

“Right now, the biggest threat to us is you,” Jasper said and walked away. Clarke stared at him, heart pounding in her ears. This place wasn’t _safe_. They were locked inside, and nobody was letting them out. Just because there weren’t Grounders didn’t make it safe. The Ark didn’t have Grounders and that hadn’t made it safe.

Terra flopped down on the bottom bunk next to Clarke. “I have been trying to get you alone since yesterday morning,” she said to Clarke. “Jasper’s right because you’re being the least chill person I’ve ever met aside from Bellamy right after we first landed.”

Clarke looked at her, sighed, and sat down on the bed next to her. “What were you signing to me? I never picked up sign language.”

“They’re lying to us,” Terra said quietly.

“And how are they doing that?” Miller asked, putting his book down.

“I asked about Raven and Anya,” Terra said. “As soon as I was released from quarantine. I was with Raven, remember? I asked and was told they were both dead when they found us.”

“Jasper had Anya, she wasn’t dead,” Clarke said. “She wasn’t even injured that much beyond bruising and probably a concussion.”

“And I had Raven, who also wasn’t dead,” Terra said. “Jasper thinks this is a Utopia because the Grounders aren’t trying to kill us in here. But there’s no such thing as a Utopia. We just need to find our man-eating sheep.”

“The what?” Miller asked.

“I have no idea what that means,” Clarke said.

“It’s from Thomas More’s _Utopia_ ,” Terra said. At both Miller’s and Clarke’s own incredulous looks she scoffed. “What? Bellamy gets to be a nerd about history and mythology, and I can’t get to be one about political philosophy?”

“Hey Clarke,” Monty’s voice called, and Miller quickly picked his book back up before Monty walked over to them. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Clarke said.

“Jasper’s worried that things are going to go badly for us here,” Monty said. “Anyways, are you coming to lunch?”

“Yeah. Terra? Miller?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure this place is going to kill us somehow, but I’m not going to turn down food,” Terra said, sliding off the bed.

“I’m gonna go talk to Jasper, but I’ll meet you there,” Monty said and walked away.

“So,” Clarke began, looking at Miller, who still had his face buried in the book.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miller said, but he put the book down and got up.

“You really do,” Clarke said. “Miller, someone deserves to be happy in here. President Wallace told me he was sorry for my loss.”

“Oh, Bellamy’s not dead,” Terra said. “And Murphy’s not either because he’s too fucking annoying to be dead.”

Miller laughed and walked out of the room towards the dining hall with them. When they reached the dining hall Monty was across the room with Jasper and Maya. “Seriously though,” Clarke said, touching Miller’s arm. He turned to her. “You should.”

“What are you two talking about?” Terra asked.

“Monty and I have matching marks,” Miller mumbled.

“Oh my God,” Terra said. “You have to tell him.”

“Being soulmates doesn’t mean that things always work out,” Miller said.

“Bellamy and I have plenty of issues, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to make it work,” Clarke said.

“Miller, he’s super into you,” Terra said. “I mean, he’s staring at your ass right now.”

Miller whirled around to see Monty look away, a blush on his cheeks. “Go talk to him,” Clarke said.

“I will start singing ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ at you if you don’t. Hey Monty!” Terra called, drawing the attention of a few people. She signed something at him and then turned to Miller. “Go talk to him. Now,” she said and gave him a slight push.

Miller trudged – and that really was the only way Clarke could describe it – towards Monty, who met him halfway. The two boys awkwardly stood, facing one another for a minute. Then Miller said something quietly and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and tugged it to the side to show his shoulder, looking away from Monty. Monty gasped and raised a hand to touch the mark gently, staring at it intently. Miller reached for Monty’s wrist with his free hand and rubbed his thumb over the inside.

“That’s adorable,” Terra said. Suddenly, Monty grabbed Miller’s face and pulled him in for a strong kiss. Clarke smiled softly at the sight. Miller pulled Monty in close, a hand cradling the back of his head and the other tugging at the back of Monty’s shirt. Clarke was pretty sure tongues were now involved. The two boys were getting odd looks from the residents of Mount Weather. “Though now I think we should probably break that up before – oh, Jasper’s got it.”

Jasper, with Maya following close, moved over to Monty and Miller. Monty pulled back from Miller and half turned to face Jasper. Jasper was clearly excited, punching Monty on the arm and congratulating him. But Maya looked confused and asked a question that Clarke couldn’t hear. Miller, Monty, and Jasper looked surprised at it, whatever it was.

Clarke found out exactly what it was when Monty and Miller sat down across from her and Terra once they all had plates of food. “So, Maya asked about our marks,” Monty said. “And apparently here they think they’re just birthmarks.”

“What?” Clarke asked. “Birthmarks? That doesn’t make any sense. President Wallace said they didn’t know anyone survived until he was 7, so people would have had marks that didn’t match anyone in here. Shouldn’t they have assumed they belonged to people on the space stations? They wouldn’t have known about the Ark, but they knew about the stations. There was a lottery. And Jasper and I definitely used the word soulmate yesterday when talking about Bellamy.”

Miller shrugged. “Maybe they stopped believing in them because a good chunk of the population was unavailable.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced though. “It’d be weird to know your soulmate was thousands of miles above you and completely unreachable.”

“It feels weird,” Clarke said.

“Maybe it’s sheep,” Terra said. She looked down at the moon on the meat of her right palm under her thumb.

“That is a terrible metaphor,” Miller said. “And you,” he said to Clarke. “For the love of God, be more chill.”

“I’m sorry, have you met Clarke?” Monty asked. “She and Bellamy don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I have nothing to bet with, but if I did, I would bet you that he’s losing his goddam mind out there right now,” Terra said.

“I told her the same thing,” Monty said. “He’s disgustingly gone on you. You didn’t see him after we found Myles. He really wanted to go find you, but he wouldn’t, which was making him even worse.”

“I told him to stay,” Clarke said. “Did anyone tell you what happened after _you_ got kidnapped?”

“That Murphy tried to kill Bellamy and shot Raven?” Monty asked. 

“You think he and Finn found Murphy?” Terra asked.

“Seriously, though,” Miller said. “Be more chill about this. You’re not helping anyone like this.”

Later, after lunch, Clarke completely ignored Miller’s suggestion when she saw the soldier from the quarantine wing walking about with barely any radiation burns on his skin. But she needed to find out what was going on and how he’d been healed so quickly. Getting into medical was the easy, if painful, part. Climbing through the air ducts was a little more difficult, especially given how she’d just had stitches torn, pulled out, and reapplied within an hour. The numbing agent they’d shot into her could only do so much, after all.

What she found on the other side of the ducts was horrifying enough to take her mind off of the pain and Clarke realized with stunning clarity that she’d found the man eating sheep or whatever the hell Terra had been talking about. There were two Grounders being drained of their blood for what, for radiation treatment? And then she heard moaning and turned around to see Grounders in cages. Countless cages with countless Grounders. She walked through the cages and they reached out for her weakly. She looked down and was stunned to see Anya. She’d honestly thought Anya was dead or had been left behind when they’d been taken, but given what she was currently seeing, it made a revolting amount of sense that they would have kept her alive.

She tried to get the lock on Anya’s cage undone, but it wouldn’t budge. “I’m gonna get you out of here,” she whispered and Anya weakly nodded. She tried to find keys but didn’t see any lying around. She did see an electrical box with a metal pole containing the wires underneath it. She jerked at the pole, breaking it off. The cables attached snapped out as well. Hopefully, that fucked something up. She hurried back to Anya’s cage and used the pole to pop the bolt out of the lock. She wrenched the door open and said, “Okay, come on. Quick.”

The other Grounders were getting louder and Clarke heard an electrical beep, stopping her heart momentarily. Dr. Tsing walked in, briefly looked at the two Grounders strung up as if they were things and not people being tortured. Clarke pushed Anya back into the cage and followed, closing the door gently.

The Grounders got louder and started rattling the doors to their cages. Clarke couldn’t see what Tsing was doing since the doctor had gone down a different row of cages. She waited, pulse thundering in her ears, adrenaline flooding her body. She could hear footsteps and looked down to realize the lock was sitting on the floor beneath the cage. Could she risk grabbing it? The answer was clearly no when Tsing walked down to their cage. Clarke prayed, to God, to Hades or Persephone, or whoever else might possibly be listening, that Tsing wouldn’t look down.

Tsing backed away and Clarke let out a shaky sigh of relief. As soon as Tsing was out of the room, Clarke was out of the cage and pulling Anya with her. “Okay. We’ve gotta go. Now,” she whispered. Anya was weak and leaned heavily on her. She looked around, desperate for an escape route. She saw a sign that read ‘Protective Suits Required Beyond This Point.’ That meant radiation, which meant outside. The door was incredibly and had a short hallway leading to a square room with a hatch in the floor.

She didn’t notice the bloodstains on the floor. All she noticed was the lack of exits and the doors sliding shut behind them with a loud clank. An alarm began to sound.

“What is that?” Anya asked weakly.

She didn’t even get to finish telling Anya that she didn’t know before the floor dropped from under their feet. They slid down a chute and landed hard at the bottom. She started to sit up but felt flesh beneath her hand. Panic set in as she realized they had fallen into a cart of dead bodies. She scrambled out of the cart as fast as she could and reached back for Anya, who looked confused at what she was seeing. “Anya, take my hand.” Anya reached and Clarke hauled her out.

Clarke looked around and saw another door, but it looked like it went back into the mountain. The opposite side of the tunnel bent away out of sight. “We’re out,” she told Anya. But the other – both the Grounders and her own people – were still in there.

Anya was half leaning on the cart, staring in with a confused expression.

Another glance around revealed two more carts and a pile of clothing on the ground. Anya was essentially naked, and she was wearing a hospital gown. They wouldn’t last long in the woods that way. She rushed over to the clothes. “Hey, come on, get dressed. We can’t cover any ground like this.”

Anya hadn’t moved an inch. “I won’t leave my people behind.”

Clarke stood and moved to her. “Anya, listen to me. My people are still inside that place too. But they have guards, they have weapons. Once we get out of here, we can find help. We can come back—”

“There is no we,” Anya said, glaring at her. Indistinct voices came from down the hallway. “Someone’s coming.”

Clarke stared at the light bouncing off the tunnel’s wall. Then she realized what she was hearing. “Not just someone. Reapers.” Anya moved behind her and tried to lift a rock, presumably to use as a weapon. “Anya, you can’t fight. You can hardly stand. I have a better idea. Come on.” She pushed Anya into the other cart, which was mercifully empty. She threw an armful of clothes and two pairs of shoes in before jumping in herself. She stayed low and flat, desperately hoping that the Reapers didn’t notice anything. She also hoped that Anya figured out the plan was to literally play dead.

The Reapers passed their cart, she could see them walking around and could see the shadows of more. Then nothing. And just as she thought it was safe to move again, a body was thrown into the cart. And then another, and another. Her insides froze up when a body was dumped on top of her. The cart started to move slowly, down the tunnel, one of the Reapers pushing them. They travelled for a long time until the cart stopped moving.

Someone pulled the body off of her and a few seconds later Clarke heard a blade sink into flesh and screaming. Jesus, were some of the bodies still people? Terrified, she crouched up and peeked over the edge of the cart to see what was happening. The Reapers were a way down the tunnel and weren’t paying any attention to the cart. She was glad she couldn’t see what they were doing. She could imagine well enough given what she’d seen the last time she was in the tunnels.

“Okay, come on,” she breathed out as quietly as possible to Anya. She looked back to see Anya wasn’t moving, instead staring at one of the bodies, no a person who seemed to be alive, but just barely.

Anya murmured something in another language at the man and then snapped his neck. Clarke was startled. Anya threw the clothes out of the bin and they headed down the tunnel away from the Reapers.

As they ran, they started pulling the clothes on, but before long Clarke realized she had no idea how to get out. “Damn it. This place is a maze.”

Anya coughed and stopped running. “What are they doing to us?”

“They’re using your blood. I saw a soldier come in with radiation burns. Hours later he was fine. It’s like your blood is healing them somehow. I’ve never seen anything like it. Come on, this way.” She turned and started to continue down the tunnel. When she glanced back, Anya was moving back the way they had come. “What are you doing? That’s the way back to the Reapers.”

“You go your way, I’ll go mine.”

“Anya, we need to stick together.”

“I told you, there is no ‘we,’” Anya said, spinning around to face Clarke.

“I saved your life.”

“You saved my life because you need me. I know the way back to your people. I know where the traps are hidden. You’d never make it alone.”

All of that was true, but she had also saved Anya because Mount Weather was horrifying and that had been her first gut reaction, not Anya’s use. “We don’t have time for this,” and started down the tunnel. “Our best chance of making it out of here alive is together. All we can do is keep moving and hope—” But Anya was gone when she looked back. She started back the way they’d come, but torchlight grew in one of the branching tunnels that way. She turned and ran. She couldn’t think of Anya now. She had to get out and find her way back to the dropship.

She ran and ran, only to find she’d run right into the Reapers. She was trapped. Then, out of nowhere a high-pitched noise sounded and the Reapers clutched their heads and began groaning.

“Get back! Get the hell away from her!” a man shouted, and Clarke turned to see Mount Weather hazmat suits.

“Clarke Griffin, you’re coming with us,” the other man said, aiming his rifle at her. The mountain men dragged her away and walked her back to the entrance.

When they got to the door she said, “I saw everything. I know what you’re doing to them.”

“That’s why you’re going in the harvest chamber with them,” the first man said, and her gut sank. They reached the door and he leaned forward to the comm panel. “Alpha Delta Two, we reached the intake. One prisoner in custody.”

Clarke thought desperately of how to get out of this.

Over the comms a voice said, “Your mission was to bring back both of them. The Outsider cannot be allowed to leave this mountain. Alpha-Delta One is coming out now.”

There was a battle cry from above and one of the two men went down. Clarke attacked the other and ripped his mask off, calling for Anya to do the same.

“I found a way out,” Anya said as both men screamed. God she was going to have such nightmares from this literal nightmare she was in. “This way.”

Clarke grabbed one of the rifles and followed after Anya just as the door behind them opened for Alpha-Delta One.

Anya’s way out was to jump out of the dam hundreds of feet down into the water. “Wait. There has to be another way!” Clarke shouted over the roar of the water. _I can’t swim and we’re gonna die in the fall_ she thought.

“There isn’t!” Anya shouted.

The mountain men caught up with them and one told her to give up. She looked at Anya, who jumped.

“We don’t have to kill you, Clarke, you hear me? It doesn’t have to end like this.”

She turned to look at the guard. Go with them to get locked in a cage to die, unable to help her friends, or jump off a waterfall and maybe die. Great options.

She dropped the gun and put her hands up when they asked. She stepped towards them, only so she could get momentum to try and clear more horizontal distance when she turned to jump.

As she fell, she thought _Drowning is the dumbest way for Earth to finally kill me_.

Genuinely, it was a miracle that she didn’t drown. There was no other way to explain it. Then, that miracle turned into just another day on Earth when Anya clubbed her across the head to take her back as a prize.

Anya dragged her through the woods, presumably to her village, but it hadn’t taken this long to get there when she and Finn had been kidnapped.

“Anya, we’ve been walking for hours. Where are we going?” she asked eventually.

“Quiet,” Anya hissed.

“Why not just kill me and get it over with?”

“You can tell the Commander what the Mountain Men are doing to us there.”

“So, let’s work together,” Clarke said, tugging on the make shift rope to get Anya to stop. “We don’t have to be enemies.”

“And unite with someone as weak as you?” Anya spit out. “I have what I need.”

“Hey,” Clarke said, tugging Anya to a stop again. “We both want the same thing.”

“Get down,” Anya said, yanking her down just as a shot fired.

“They followed us,” Clarke said.

Looking around, they seemed surrounded. 

“Run,” Anya said and started dragging her. Clarke grabbed what she assumed was a tranquilizer dart sticking out a tree.

Eventually they seemed to outrun the Mountain Men, though Clarke didn’t know if they’d find them again. Anya dragged her to a pond and forced her down. When she cupped her hands to drink Anya slapped them down. “No. Not to drink.”

“Then why stop? We should be running.”

Anya scooped up a palmful of mud and smacked her in the face with it, startling her. “You reek. Cover yourself in it.” She began scooping it up and applying it to her jacket. Clarke followed suit, but she wasn’t sure how smell played in. The Mountain Men weren’t using a scent tracker.

They started moving again once they were covered in mud to Anya’s satisfaction. But they still hadn’t lost them.

“How are they still following us?” Clarke asked after vertical climbing a ridge.

“Because of you,” Anya said. She grabbed a rock and head it aloft. “Time to end this.”

Clarke reflexively put her hands up to defend herself. “Anya, I’m stepping where you step. I’m covered in mud. We’re not leaving a trail.”

“They’re following something,” Anya said.

“They’re not following us,” Clarke said, realizing why the one soldier was waving the tablet around. “They’re tracking us. Search yourself. If I’m right it – it should feel like a small bump under your skin.”

Clarke began patting herself down too, but she hadn’t noticed anything before now. Anya ripped her sleeve off and that was not a small bump.

“It’s you,” Clarke said. “Okay, I can remove it.” She tried to think of what she could use to remove it. Maybe one of the rocks? They didn’t look sharp enough. “But you need to untie my hands. I just need something sharp and sterile,” she started to say but Anya just bit it out of her own arm.

What the fuck?

“I will not go back there,” Anya said, mouth and chin covered in blood. Clarke believed her.

They set off again.

She thought they were far enough away from the tracking chip when she made her move.

“Anya, you’re still bleeding. At least let me bandage it so it doesn’t get infected.” Which was actually true, but when Anya looked down at her arm, Clarke jammed the tranquilizer dart into the side of Anya’s neck.

Anya collapsed and Clarke pulled her bindings free of Anya’s limp grasp. “I can find my way home from here.” She tied Anya’s hands together. “Looks like you’re my prisoner now.”

She managed to drag Anya’s half-conscious body back to the dropship on a hastily constructed sled. The Mountain Men obviously knew where it was, but she hoped they wouldn’t think to go there. It looked the same as before and just as empty. She’d hoped someone – Bellamy – would be here.

But when she got closer, she saw something new. There was writing on the dropship wall. All she could make out was her name above a smudge and some sort of circle next to it. There was a smudge inside of it that maybe had been something else before the weather had gotten to it. She stared at it, trying to figure out what it was, but she knew it meant someone had survived. Someone – hopefully Bellamy had left her a message. Wait. That wasn’t a circle. It had a little bit poking out from the circle and that big smudge – the seeds on their mark. She laughed, though it sounded more like a sob to her own ears, and her heart filled with joy and hope as she realized it was a very badly drawn pomegranate.

Bellamy was alive. She hadn’t killed him. He was alive and he was looking for her. Now she just had to find him.

She didn’t hear Anya get up until it was almost too late.

“Anya, wait,” Clarke said, holding her hands up.

Anya swung and Clarke ducked under her arm to get behind her. Anya swung again, wildly, and hit Clarke in the shoulder. Anya was still mostly out of it and Clarke darted forward to put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey!”

Anya clocked her and sent her flying. She pushed up and grabbed a log and charged at Anya. She was done being reasonable. She had a soulmate to find and she wasn’t going to let Anya kill her before she did.

The fight was different than any other for Clarke. She hadn’t really been in any hand to hand fights or close combat ones other than Dax. She’d basically been useless in that fight and Anya was much, much better than Dax.

She really did think she was going to die there a couple of times, but in the end, she was on top, Anya was pretty much unconscious again, and they were both bleeding from multiple injuries. She grabbed the knife and held it up, prepared to kill Anya.

But something glinted in the sun and when she looked up there was a balloon of all things peeking above the trees far away in the distance.

There were survivors from the crash. President Wallace lied. And they were at the lake southwest of the dropship. She tied Anya’s hands back up and dragged her to her feet. She didn’t know what she was going to do with the Grounder once she reached the survivors, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave her at the dropship. Anya stumbled, still mostly senseless from the fight, as Clarke led her through the woods. She hoped and hoped that Bellamy would be there when she reached the survivors. He’d been at the dropship since the Ark landed and it wasn’t that far away. He was the only person she wanted to see there. Well, Raven too. She hoped Raven was there and okay.

And maybe Jackson. She was pretty sure she had a concussion. She was definitely bleeding and the mud she was covered in was probably going to give her an infection.

By the time they got close to the lake, night had fallen, but they passed the edge of the tree line and there it was. One of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. A huge hunk of the Ark, all lit up. She paused, taking it all in for a second.

“Look at that.”

“How many are there?” Anya asked.

“I don’t know,” Clarke said, “A lot, I hope.” She turned and began to undo Anya’s bindings. “I’m letting you go. I’m not weak, but I’m not like you. Our only chance against Mount Weather is if we fight together. To beat them we’ll need our technology and your knowledge of the world. I know my people will help. The question is, will yours?”

Anya didn’t answer for a moment. “The Commander was my second,” she finally said. “I can get an audience.” Clarke reached out and they clasped forearms.

“Please hurry,” Clarke said.

Anya made it a few steps away before a shot rang out. Anya fell and Clarke ran to her. A bullet grazed her arm, leaving a trail of fire across her bicep. She ignored it and dropped down next to Anya. Belly shot. That wasn’t something you could come back from easily. She tried to apply pressure, but Anya said something in that other language, something similar to what she’d said before.

“Anya, you’re okay, you’re okay,” Clarke said, pressing down on the wound.

Lights were bouncing all over the place and as she turned to look, something clocked her in the face, and she went down.

She could feel herself being dragged and could barely focus. Her face hurt. Lights were flashing in her eyes. Someone was speaking to her.

And then, clear as anything, her mom’s voice. But that wasn’t possible. She’d died when the Exodus ship crashed. A face appeared in front of her, her mom’s face. But it wasn’t – she couldn’t be here.

“Mom?” she asked.

Her mom said something and suddenly she was swung up into someone’s arms, which made her head spin and her stomach seize. There was quick, bouncing movement from the person carrying her and she was laid on a horizontal surface. There was a bright light shining in her face and she winced and turned away from it.

Her mom – _her mom!_ – crowded close next to the bed and pushed her hair away from her face. “I need saline and a pressure bandage,” she said to someone else in the room. Then she focused her attention back on Clarke. “Oh honey.”

“I saw your ship crash,” Clarke said. The Exodus ship crashed. Her mom was on it. Was this – was she dead? Was this the afterlife? She couldn’t think straight. Her head hurt and she couldn’t stay focused.

“I wasn’t on it,” her mom said soothingly in the same tone of voice as when she’d been little and had nightmares. “I’m right here.”

Someone else approached the bed, bringing her mom supplies, and Clarke realized it was Jackson. She’d always liked Jackson.

“Is she alright?”

A woman in a guard’s body armor was standing a few steps away from the bed. Possibly one of the people who’d been trying to talk to her when she’d been shot and hit in the head.

“She will be,” Abby said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We had no idea who she was,” the woman said. She stepped closer to the bed. “Where have you been?”

“Byrne,” Abby said sharply, pausing a second in cleaning Clarke’s wounds.

“Mount Weather,” Clarke said, which made all three adults pause.

“The Grounders took you to Mount Weather?” Byrne asked.

“No. The Mountain Men,” Clarke corrected as her mom helped her sit up. “We have to get them out.”

“We’re not doing this right now,” Abby said.

“Yes ma’am,” Byrne said and walked away.

“Mom,” Clarke said. “Did anyone else make it here? Did Bellamy?”

“Yes,” Abby said. Clarke started to cry, sobs catching in her throat. Bellamy was alive. He’d drawn that pomegranate on the dropship and he was _alive_. “And six others too,” her mother continued.

“I thought he was dead,” Clarke said, sobs now shaking her body. “I thought I killed him. I thought you were dead!” Her mother cradled her face. “I thought you were dead,” she repeated.

Her mom kissed her on the forehead and pulled her close. “No, I’m right here.”


	17. Chapter 17

When Clarke began to wake up the first thing she recognized was that she hurt. A lot. There was a weight on her legs and she blearily opened her eyes to see her mother, not Bellamy. She glanced around but couldn’t see him anywhere. Where was he? Why wasn’t he in here? Her mom had said that he was alive, not that he was healthy and safe? Was he hurt? Did he get hurt when the rockets went off? Was he somewhere in the medical area that she couldn’t see?

As if she could sense that her daughter had woken, Abby’s own eyes opened and she smiled as she sat up. It was then Clarke noticed the pin on her mom’s jacket. “I thought you got thrown off the Council?”

“Oh,” her mom said with a small chuckle. “It’s the Chancellor’s pin.”

“You?”

“Yeah,” she said and laughed a little. “Thelonius didn’t make it and Kane left two days ago to try and make peace with the Grounders to try and get you and the others back.”

“I told you, the Grounders don’t have us,” Clarke said. She looked around, noticing how bright the daylight was. Had she slept all night? Where was Bellamy? If he was okay he would’ve been here. He wouldn’t have stayed away. Unless…Had her mom kept him out of medical? She knew they were soulmates; she’d been the one to send him down as a stowaway. “How long have I been asleep?”

“About ten hours,” her mom told her. Well, she didn’t have a concussion if her mom had let her sleep that long. She also shouldn’t have slept that long. There was too much to do.

Clarke started to get off the bed and her mom protested. “Mom, we need to move against Mount Weather. How many guards are here? Where’s Bellamy? Where are the others?” There were boots by the foot of the medical bed and she tugged them on. Yet again she was in new clothes, though she wasn’t as bothered by it this time given the probability of her mother’s involvement. She was slightly embarrassed that he mother had seen the marks Bellamy had left on her body, but she’d get over it.

“Clarke, please, you need to rest.”

“I don’t need to rest. I’m fine.” What she needed was to find Bellamy and the others so she could explain what had happened. Then they could explain it to the Council and her mom so they could start planning a rescue mission. She also just needed to see Bellamy, to make sure that he was okay and just to hug the shit out of him. She didn’t think her mom would’ve lied about him being alive, but she needed to see him for herself. And he needed to see her. Why hadn’t her mom let him in the medical tent? “And I don’t need you to protect me. What I need is to save my friends.”

“Ma’am,” Byrne said from the tent’s entrance. “Movement, in the North woods.”

“Grounders?” her mom asked.

“I don’t think so,” Byrne said.

What did that mean? “Mom, where’s Bellamy?” Byrne shot her a look and her mom didn’t answer, instead walking out of the medical tent. “Mom!”

Clarke followed, intent on getting answers. Right outside the tent, though, was a very alive looking Raven. “Hi,” she said, overwhelmed with happiness that Raven was amongst the seven that survived. Seven was not nearly as many as she’d hoped to find, but Raven was here and alive.

Raven stood up, using a cane to help. “I’ve been waiting out here all night,” she said as they hugged. “Abby said you needed sleep.”

Clarke stepped back and saw the brace on Raven’s leg. “Raven!”

“Sucks,” Raven said, nodding. “But I’m dealing with it.”

In the distance her mom shouted to open the gate. “Raven, where’s Bellamy? Is he okay? Mom said he made it, but he wasn’t – I haven’t seen him. Where is he?”

“See for yourself,” Raven said and gestured to the gate.

She turned to look and saw Bellamy, Octavia, and Monroe walking through the large gates. Bellamy was supporting a girl, one she didn’t recognize. It looked like she was wearing his jacket. Why the fuck had he been outside? Had he – oh. He had been looking for her.

She was running before she could tell her feet to move. “Bellamy!” she shouted, and he looked up, startled. She thought she saw him say her name and he started running too, leaving the girl he was supporting to Octavia. She crashed into him, arms going around him and hands fisting into the back of his shirt. It hurt, but he was _here_ and _alive_ and his arms were tight around her, holding her as close as possible. “I thought,” she started, tears already falling down her cheeks, but he cut her off with a kiss.

It wasn’t a good kiss, to be honest. They were both laughing and crying too much, they were too desperate, and her split lip hurt like a mother. But _God_ it felt good. They were back where they belonged with one another.

Raven wolf whistled at them from behind, but she ignored it. Bellamy wove a hand through the hair at the back of her head, holding her close, and pressed against her mark with the other. She pressed against his mark and tugged him even closer into her. He pulled back from her lips just enough to speak. “I’m here. I’m right here, sweetheart,” he breathed into her lips, though he was still crying too.

“I saw it, your drawing, at the dropship. I thought I killed you, but I saw it and I knew you were alive,” she said and kissed him again. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I missed you so much, I couldn’t—” he cut off as she kissed him, desperate with relief.

There was a pointed cough from behind them. Reluctantly Clarke pulled back from Bellamy but stayed firmly wrapped around him. Raven was smirking and Octavia and the others had reached them. The other girl was gone, but Abby and Monroe were standing near. Monroe looked amused at the display and Abby looked decidedly _un_ amused. “Hi,” Monroe said, waving. She had a cloth tied around her thigh. Clarke stepped away from Bellamy to hug her. God she was glad Monroe was alive. She was glad _anyone_ was alive, but she liked Monroe. Some of the kids she’d never really gotten to know.

“Clarke,” her mother said, glancing between Clarke and Bellamy. She looked slightly disappointed.

“What? You’re the one that sent him down for me.” Clarke said, moving back to Bellamy’s side.

“And for me,” Octavia said. Clarke grinned at her before hugging her tightly. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“You too,” Clarke said. She looked back at Bellamy and couldn’t help but press herself into his side and wrap her arms around him. His own came around her to hold her close.

“How many with you?” he asked, and her smile fell.

“None,” she told him and the relief on Monroe, Octavia, and Bellamy’s faces fell. She glanced at her mom. “She said there were seven of you? Where are the others?”

“Where’s Finn?” Raven asked. “Why didn’t he come back with you?”

“He’s looking for Clarke and the others,” Bellamy said.

Abby said, “Are you two alright or should I take you to medical too?”

“We’re fine,” Bellamy said, completely ignoring the fact that the cuts and scrapes on his face needed to be cleaned. “Monroe, got get that looked at. We’ll come find you.”

Monroe nodded and Abby looked at Clarke and Bellamy for a few seconds longer before sighing. “Where did you find her? The girl from Factory Station.”

“About a day away. No other survivors but lots of supplies. Station crashed into the side of a cliff, so the team will have to be ready for that.”

“I’ll add it to the list,” Abby said and led Monroe away.

“Who else other than Finn?” Clarke asked.

“Sterling,” Bellamy said. “And Murphy.”

“Murphy. You’re working with Murphy now? Four days ago, he tried to hang you,” Clarke said, shifting her hand down to trace the still visible bruising around his neck. “It was four days, right?” She wasn’t entirely sure how long she’d spent in that white room or how long she’d been unconscious to start with.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Bellamy said dryly, though his expression shifted to concern. “Wait, why wouldn’t it have been four days ago? How did you lose track of time? Did you hit your head?”

“She’s very clearly hit her head, Bell,” Octavia said. “Look at her face.”

“I don’t know how long we’ve been missing. I know how long I’ve been aware of it, but not how long I was gone,” she admitted.

“What does _that_ mean?” Bellamy asked suspiciously, eyeing the injuries on her face.

“You really need to explain what’s going on,” Raven said.

“I’ll explain it once we get Monroe back,” Clarke said. “God, I also have to explain it to my mom. Go back to the Murphy part. Why do you trust Murphy when he tried to hang you?”

“Look, he could have let me and Sterling die yesterday when we were rescuing Mel and he didn’t. It doesn’t excuse what he did. But you said second chances,” Bellamy said.

“That was before he probably killed Connor, definitely killed Myles,” Clarke began.

“Okay,” Raven said. “Why don’t we take this somewhere less public? Also, everyone’s still staring from the two of you attacking each other with your mouths. Follow me.” She turned and headed towards the Ark.

“Let me get something for Bellamy’s face first,” Clarke sighed. “Octavia, are you actually okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said shortly.

Clarke took Bellamy’s hand and dragged him towards the Medical tent. “Clarke, I’m okay.”

“There is dirt _in_ your face,” she told him. “Come on.”

“I missed you so fucking much,” Bellamy said. He squeezed her hand and tugged her to a stop before wrapping her back up in his arms. She hid her face in his shoulder and just breathed him in for a minute.

“Everyone kept telling me you were dead,” she said and tried to step even closer into him. “We don’t have time for this.”

“I know,” he said and pulled back from her. He kept his hand in hers as they continued walking, side by side this time instead of Clarke in the lead.

“The Grounders didn’t take us, the Mountain Men did.”

“Mountain Men?”

“I’m really glad we didn’t land on Mount Weather after all,” she said as they entered the Medical tent.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Bellamy asked. “Are you talking about Lincoln’s Mountain Men? They’re from Mount Weather? I mean, I guess that makes sense.” He shook his head. “Is everyone else still there? How did you get out?”

“I’ll explain it when I tell the others,” Clarke said. “Jackson. Is there anything I can use to at least clean his face?”

“Clarke,” he said, looking frazzled. “We don’t have a lot to spare, but I’ll get you something. You really shouldn’t be out of bed yet though. You probably have a concussion,” he mentioned before heading off.

“My mother let me sleep for ten hours,” she called after him. “Pretty sure she wouldn’t have done that if I had one.”

“You don’t have a concussion,” Abby said from across the room where she was looking after Monroe’s leg.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said in concern. He ushered her to one of the empty beds and hoisted her up, wincing as he did so. “Concussion?”

“You winced. Why did you wince?” she asked, hands on his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine, I promise,” he said, stepping in close between her legs. “It’s just the fight with the Grounders and then I got a little banged up getting Mel out of the wreck of Factory Station. What happened to you?”

She sighed heavily and pressed her face into his neck. “It’s a long story.” He wrapped his arms around her and just held her. She just wanted to be near him, to be wrapped up together. Not that she didn’t also want to find some privacy and get naked for some life affirming ‘neither of us are dead’ sex. But just having him close and holding on to her was comforting.

“You two are gross,” Monroe called.

“You’re gross,” was Bellamy’s eloquent reply.

“Are you two going to be all handsy and gross still?” Monroe asked. “It was bad enough at the dropship.”

Clarke laughed into Bellamy’s neck. She sat up, looking towards her mom. Monroe’s mention of the dropship had reminded her of what should still be in the dropship. “Mom, there’s some seaweed down here that works like an antibiotic. You can use it topically in a poultice or as a tea. The poultice seemed to be more effective though. We also found a willow tree, well, Monty found the – Monty’s okay,” she said, looking first to Bellamy and then to Monroe.

“Monty’s – he’s alive?” Bellamy asked. “You’re – you saw him?”

“He’s there. The Mountain Men took him while you were out looking for me and Finn.”

“The what now?” Monroe asked. “The Mountain Men? What the hell are the Mountain Men?”

“There’s people inside Mount Weather. They can’t handle the radiation, they’ve been locked in there since the bombs went off. They’re using Grounders to filter the radiation through their blood instead,” Clarke said.

“That…sounds horrifying,” Bellamy said.

“They’ve got the Grounders locked up in cages.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Monroe said. “Anyways, the seaweed, the willow bark, and the witch hazel are all in the medical trunk on the second floor. Unless the Grounders stole it after you all were kidnapped.”

“You found antibiotics down here?” Abby asked. “You went to the sea?” She looked stunned.

“Well, it’s not seaweed. It’s technically riverweed,” Clarke said. “Pretty sure it saved Jasper’s life. Monty identified the other two.”

“We’re definitely going to need those,” Abby said. “Alright, Monroe, I want you to take it easy and to stay off that leg as much as possible. Clarke? Are our people in cages?”

“No,” Clarke said. “But I think it’s more of a ‘not yet’ situation. They said no one survived the fire at the dropship or from the Ark crashing. But they knew. One of their men was shot and they tried to make it look like he was shot by Grounders, but I know it was a bullet wound.”

“He actually shot someone?” Abby asked, looking startled. “Byrne was adamant he was shooting at an animal. They got that close?” She shook her head.

Jackson came over holding a small bundle. “We don’t have a lot, Clarke, but this is what I can get you. There’s no disinfectant.”

“Monty’s still should be in the dropship too,” Clarke said. “It tastes revolting and it’s strong enough to kill pretty much anything.” She pushed Bellamy back just enough that she could slide down off of the table.

“Clarke, you need to rest,” her mother said. “You stay here and rest. I need to go speak with the rest of the Council.”

“I’m fine. Let me update the others on our friends and then I’ll explain everything to you and the Council,” she said and moved towards Monroe. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.” She and Bellamy helped Monroe down off the bed and had started to head out when he paused and turned back.

She turned halfway, still supporting Monroe, to watch in confusion as he headed to where the girl from Factory Station was lying on one of the beds. “Hey Mel, can I get my jacket back?” he asked. She handed it over and he shrugged it on as he walked back towards where Clarke and Monroe had stopped. “What? I grabbed your sketchbook when we went back to the dropship,” he said.

“Gross,” Monroe said.

Clarke smiled as he picked up the bundle for his face again and they made their way outside to where the others were waiting for them.

“Alright, let’s go,” Raven said when the three of them appeared through the tent’s entrance. She led them into and through the remains of the Ark, passing people who looked tired and frightened. Their final destination was a room that seemed to be a cross between engineering and mech given the amount of things she recognized from watching her dad work and the amount of things she didn’t recognize. A scruffy looking blonde man was at the back table fiddling with something.

“Reyes,” he started, but stopped when he saw Raven had brought others.

“Guys, this is Wick. He’s not quite as useless as he looks. Wick, these are my friends Clarke, Bellamy, Monroe, and Octavia,” Raven said. Closed the door to the room. “Okay, go back to arguing,” she said, looking between Clarke and Bellamy.

“Wick?” Clarke asked, startled. This was not what she assumed Raven’s soulmate would look like. He was older, which was kind of the pot calling the kettle black given that Bellamy was five years older than she was. But Wick looked like he was older than Bellamy. It might’ve been the scruff that covered his face. She was glad, though, that he was alive.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously.

“Terra mentioned you,” Clarke said.

“Terra’s okay?” Wick and Raven asked.

“Yeah. So’s Monty.” Raven let out a relieved sigh. “Terra was with you when they gassed us,” Clarke said. “That’s how she knew they were lying to us. They said you and Anya were dead when they got there.”

“The Grounders gassed us?” Raven asked. “With what?”

“No, the Mountain Men did,” Clarke said. She looked at Bellamy. “Sit so I can fix your face,” she said. He rolled his eyes but hopped up onto a clear spot on one of the tables. “Water,” she said, holding her hand out for his canteen. He handed it over and she started cleaning his injuries.

“I’m sorry, the _Mountain Men_?” Octavia asked.

“Lincoln was right. We should have been worried about them. There’s people in Mount Weather,” Clarke said, focusing on Bellamy’s face. “They can’t handle the radiation, but they wear hazmat suits with oxygen tanks when they have to leave. They took us right when we came out of the dropship after the ground outside cooled down.” Bellamy frowned.

“And I’m gonna assume they aren’t nice because you’re here and everyone else isn’t,” Raven said hesitantly.

“They’ve got Grounders in cages. They’re using them as blood bags to remove the radiation poisoning from their bodies. I don’t know how it works. I just know it does work and it’s killing the Grounders with radiation poisoning,” Clarke said. She didn’t look at the others, didn’t even look at Bellamy’s eyes as she cleaned his face. She felt two of his fingers tuck into her waistband behind her jacket. He didn’t do anything with them, just kept them there pressed against her skin.

“They have Grounders in cages?” Octavia asked, sounding shaken. “You think they’re going to do that to our people?”

“Yes,” Clarke said. “I saw a man almost cured of radiation burns in only a few hours. I don’t know if it’s transfusions or if they’re fully cycling the blood of both people through each other. The Grounders all looked half dead. It’s killing them. I think they’re going to start using us instead. Their President said we process radiation really well because of space.”

“They have a _President_?” Wick asked. “That’s ambitious.”

“We have a Chancellor and a Council,” Monroe said. “It’s not that different from a President and a Cabinet.”

“We’re not going to let them use our friends,” Bellamy said firmly, and she met his gaze. His eyes were dark and angry. God, he took her breath away sometimes.

“When they’re done with the Grounders, when they’re no longer useful, they drop them down a chute for the Reapers. That’s how Anya and I escaped. Even though she’d only been there for four days she was in really bad shape,” Clarke continued.

“What the fuck is wrong with this planet?” Wick asked. “I’m mean, the Ark wasn’t perfect, but _Jesus_. This is worse than anything I could’ve thought.”

“Really?” Raven asked. “I thought of a lot of worse things.”

“I thought the air was toxic and going to kill all of us,” Clarke said, glancing over at Wick.

“You escaped with Anya? Where is she?” Octavia asked.

“Dead,” Clarke said flatly. “We had a game of ‘who’s the prisoner now’ until I dragged her back to the dropship. We were beating the crap out of each other and I almost killed her when I saw the balloon. She was going to get us a meeting with the Grounder’s commander when the guards shot her.”

“You saw my balloon?” Raven asked.

“The commander that was sending an army to kill us,” Bellamy said slowly.

“The only way we’re going to get our people out is if we work together to get _everyone_ out. The Grounders might have been killing us before, but they don’t deserve what’s being done to them. Nobody does,” she said.

“And they haven’t hurt our people?” Bellamy asked.

“Not yet, but they’re going to start using us eventually. I don’t – I don’t know if they’ll all be okay with it. But…the doctor, Tsing, she looked at the Grounders like they weren’t even people. Wallace called them savages.”

Bellamy made a face. “That’s…” He huffed out a breath. “That’s very Roman of them.”

“Is there any chance they’re going to _ask_ if they can have blood?” Wick asked hesitantly.

“They have Grounders in cages. I couldn’t even count how many there were. They’re not going to ask politely,” Clarke said, looking over at him.

“How many are there?” Bellamy asked.

“47 of us and I saw maybe a hundred to two hundred of them. I barely saw any children though, so I don’t know how many there actually are. But they have guns and gas that knocked us out,” Clarke said. “They have redundancy systems to lock it down if any radiation gets in.”

“Only 47?” Bellamy asked, dismay in his voice.

“We’ll save them,” she promised him, and reached a hand up to cup his face. She rubbed her thumb over the divot in his chin. “We’ll get them out.”

“Are they always like this?” Wick asked a moment later when no one else spoke.

Clarke and Bellamy both glanced over at him. “Yes,” Octavia, Monroe, and Raven said.

“They’re gross and disgusting soulmates,” Raven continued. “Soulmates are the _worst_.”

Clarke knew she was teasing them, but she was pretty sure she saw a twinge of regret on Wick’s face. “Oh,” she said, brightening. “Miller’s Monty’s soulmate. I made him tell Monty.”

Bellamy grinned. “Good. The dumbass was pining enough.”

“Monty asked me if I thought Miller was decent at one point,” Clarke said. “Miller saw the soulmark but I don’t know when.”

“Reyes, we like this Miller?” Wick asked. “Good enough for my boy Monty?”

“He’s a good guy,” Raven said, shrugging. “But he’s friends with Blake, so everything’s relative.” Bellamy looked like he felt insulted.

“Speaking of _good guys_ ,” Clarke said, turning back to Bellamy. “Murphy. He’s on his third chance. His second chance involved murder, kidnapping, hostage taking, attempted murder, and _he shot Raven_!”

“Wait, _he’s_ the reason you had a bullet in your back?” Wick asked. When Clarke looked at him, he was staring at Raven intently, the lines of his shoulders tense.

“It’s complicated,” Raven sighed, waving a hand in his direction.

“You had surgery, without any form of anesthesia, because of him,” Wick continued. “And your response is ‘It’s complicated?’”

“He didn’t let Sterling, Mel, or me die when he very easily could have,” Bellamy said. “We don’t have many people that know how ruthless the ground is.” He paused and glanced over at Raven. “Finn’s also a little…off. A Grounder was wearing your dad’s watch as a necklace and they had everyone’s clothes. The watch kind of set him off. So yes, I trust Murphy right now because I’m not sure I trust Finn right now. They’re out there with Sterling looking for you and the others.”

“We need to go get them. We need to plan to attack Mount Weather,” Clarke said.

“Your mom’s the Chancellor, so you’re going to have to convince her,” Raven said.

“So, we’ve got Grounders, Mountain Men, and whatever the hell a Reaper is,” Wick said. “Good to know.”

“There’s also panthers,” Monroe said. “They don’t taste good. Deer are better.”

“Squirrel’s pretty awful,” Octavia said. “And there’s hallucinogenic nuts too.”

“I feel like my mom could figure out how to use those medically,” Clarke said. “We should also just warn her about them.”

“You – what?” Wick asked. He shook his head. “Earth’s a lot more fucked up than I thought it was gonna be.”

“There’s glowing butterflies,” Clarke said. “And sea monsters, well, river monsters. Acid fog too.”

“What’s the mountain like?” Bellamy asked, bringing the conversation back to the important part. “How did you escape?”

“I got myself in the Infirmary,” she said, and lifted her arm even though her jacket covered the injury. Bellamy eyed her arm warily. “It’s nothing. Like I said, Jasper and I saw a soldier covered in radiation burns and then hours later he looked fine. One of the guards here shot another one and he was exposed trying to save his life.”

“Cal actually shot someone?” Wick asked. “You’re sure.”

“Very. They tried to cover it up and make it into an arrow wound, but I know what I saw even if Jasper didn’t believe me. They’re willing to go pretty far from the mountain,” she said, thinking. Mount Weather was an eight hour walk away from where they were. Were their oxygen tanks that good or did they have some means of travel? They were travelling by foot after her and Anya. “When I tried to figure out what they were treating the soldier with I found the Grounders. That’s how I found Anya. Mount Weather has a series of tunnels under it, the ones that lead all the way out here. And it uses hydroelectric power from the dam. The Reapers are in the tunnels. Anya and I escaped them, but we had to jump into the dam over a waterfall to escape the soldiers.”

“Clarke!” Bellamy said. “None of us know how to swim!”

“It was the only way,” Clarke said. “I don’t know how I didn’t drown. But then Anya decided I was her prisoner. Once I saw the balloon over the camp, I dragged her all the way here. I let her go before the guards shot us.”

“The guards shot _you_? Not just Anya?” Octavia asked.

“Clarke and I need to go have a conversation about what the word ‘okay’ means now,” Bellamy said, hopping off the table. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room. “You didn’t say anything about the guards shooting _you_.”

“There’s a storage closet three doors down on the right you can use,” Wick called out. “It’s big!”

“Do not have sex in there!” Raven called after them.

Bellamy did drag her to the closet, which had enough space for the two of them to stand comfortably against the shelves with about a foot of space in between. He, however, stood with his back against the door and arms crossed. “The Grounder – Tristan? – beat the shit out of my face. I have bruised ribs according to your mother. I don’t think I messed my shoulder up too bad saving Sterling and Mel, but it hurts. I don’t have a concussion, but your mom said it was close, but that was a couple of days ago. What’s wrong with you that I can’t see?”

“Let me see your ribs,” Clarke said, and Bellamy tugged the hem of his shirt up, looking at her expectantly. There was a nasty bruise on his side, and she reached out to press against it. He winced and sucked in a breath, but it felt like it was just bruising and not a break. She sighed and started taking off her jacket. Bellamy’s gaze darted from her forearm up to her bicep on the opposite arm. “I woke up in a white room by myself in completely new clothes.”

“Did they,” he started to say, stepping forward to her, concern and worry on his face.

“I don’t know everything they did,” Clarke said, looking away as she finished taking off her jacket. “They changed my clothes and washed my hair and cut it.”

“I thought it was shorter, but I didn’t know if I was just imagining things,” Bellamy said. He ran his fingers through the ends of her hair.

“I know they checked us out medically and Miller had two operations before they released him. He – he would’ve died if they hadn’t taken us. I couldn’t have performed an appendectomy at the dropship, and I wouldn’t have known he had a blood clot. Though he probably wouldn’t have had the blood clot without the surgery anyways. But I don’t know what else they did. I don’t – I don’t think they did anything…” She trailed off. Whatever they had done, it was still a violation. They’d touched her, even if it was from a medical and practical standpoint. Someone had seen her naked, someone she didn’t know. Maybe it was Tsing. Maybe it was Maya. She just didn’t know.

She shivered and Bellamy moved forward to hug her. “We’re gonna get our friends back and we’re gonna make them pay,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “And you’re gonna get a full checkup from your mom just in case. For your peace of mind and for mine.”

“Monty was in the room opposite me,” she said. “I was so relieved to see him.” Bellamy pulled back slightly, and she continued. “I fell asleep and when I woke up, he was gone. Someone was in his room cleaning it and I cut my arm trying to break out and get answers. I panicked. Then I cut the stitches open to get back into the Infirmary. It was the only thing I could think of to figure out how the radiation burns disappeared so quickly.” Her mother must’ve checked her forearm after she’d passed out since the bandage there was new. While she hadn’t seen her face yet, she knew where her injuries were, and she was pretty sure there were stitches there too. The skin pulled uncomfortably at her hairline.

Bellamy ran his fingers up the length of the bandage gently. “This is pretty long,” he said quietly. “It’s probably going to scar.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said. “The rest is from not dying while falling from a dam and Anya,” she said. “It’s mostly Anya. I don’t think I have a concussion since I slept for ten hours under medical observation. But Anya did hit me in the face a few times and then I got the butt of a rifle to the face as well.”

“I can’t believe the guards shot you,” he said, tracing the bandage on her bicep.

“They thought I was a Grounder.”

“Did it go through your arm?” he asked.

“No, it just grazed me. Anya was shot in the belly,” she said. “I was trying to get to her but I couldn’t save her.”

“I tried to beat the shit out of Murphy when we found him with Raven at the dropship. I think he was protecting her from Grounders, or that’s what he was trying to do. Sterling and Monroe had to hold me back. Kane wanted to lock me up. Your mom said no. She and Miller’s dad helped us get out to look for you.”

“We’ve got to go get the others,” Clarke said. She pulled him back into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Jasper kept saying you were gone. But I knew you weren’t.” She buried her face in his neck and blinked back tears.

“Yeah, well Jasper’s an idiot. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me,” Bellamy said. He pulled back and kissed her. “Let’s go talk to your mom.”

Her mother hadn’t let anything show on her face when Clarke explained what had happened from the moment she set foot outside of the dropship to when the guards had shot Anya and her. Her only reaction had been to sigh heavily at the end. “But they haven’t hurt them,” she said.

“Not _yet_ ,” Clarke said. “But they’re going to. We process radiation better than the Grounders do.” She shook her head. “When’s a team going out after Finn, Sterling, and Murphy?”

“It’s not.”

“What? No, you can’t just cut them loose,” Clarke said, astonished at her mother.

“Sweetheart,” Abby said (and wow did that sound different now that Bellamy called her that), “we don’t have the manpower to send out two separate rescue missions and protect our camp.” Behind Clarke, Bellamy huffed out a breath and started pacing.

“Mom, they’re in trouble. Their either gonna get killed or make things worse with the Grounders who we _need_ to get our people out of Mount Weather.”

“I know you feel this is unfair. But our priority has to be with Chancellor Kane if there is any hope for peace.” Clarke desperately wanted to roll her eyes, but that wouldn’t help her argument.

“If you wanted peace, you shouldn’t have killed the only Grounder who was gonna help us,” Clarke said bitterly.

“I’m sorry. The decisions been made,” Abby said firmly and turned to go.

“You’re sorry?” Bellamy asked and Abby turned back. “Finn, Sterling, and Murphy are out there looking for your daughter with guns you gave us. And now she’s home, you’re just going to abandon them?” Clarke turned back to her mom. “If you can’t spare the guards, we know the terrain,” Bellamy said, moving closer. “We have a map. We can do it ourselves.”

“Absolutely not,” Abby snapped.

“Mom,” Clarke started to protest.

“I just got you back,” Abby said, voice tight with emotion. Clarke didn’t know what to say to that.

“Abby!” came a shout as Jackson rushed into the open hallway. “I’m sorry. We need you in Medical.”

Clarke turned to Abby. “You better go.”

“Byrne,” Abby said, keeping eye contact with Clarke. “No one leaves this camp.”

“Yes ma’am,” Byrne said.

Abby stepped aside and left. Clarke turned to Bellamy, who looked pissed. She stepped in close as if she was going to kiss his cheek and said, “We’re gonna need guns.”

He grinned, just for her, and took her hand. “Let’s go find ourselves a mechanic then.”

They made their way back to Raven and the others. “She thinks we’re children,” Clarke said irritably. “She’s not going to listen to us about things down here.”

“She was worried about you,” Bellamy said. “But she’s not, you’re right. I don’t know how worried they are about our people either.”

“We’ve got to get them out before the Mountain Men start using their blood,” Clarke said.

When they got back to the workshop, Octavia and Monroe were gone and Raven was ribbing Wick about something. “They won’t let us or anyone else go look for Finn, Sterling, and Murphy,” Bellamy said.

Raven eyed the two of them. “Wick, take a walk.”

“Reyes,” Wick began.

“Wick, take a walk,” she repeated.

He muttered something under his breath and left the room, glancing back at Raven one last time.

“Whaddya need?” Raven asked.

“Guns and a way out,” Clarke said. “Mom said no one leaves the camp.”

“I can get you that. Might take a bit, but I’ll work fast,” Raven said. “You two should make yourselves scarce. Meet me in an hour over by the piece of the Ark’s wall sticking out of the ground. It curves over on the fence side. It’s the least visible part of the wall.”

“Will do,” Bellamy said. He pulled Clarke from the room and back down to the storage closet.

“Are we here to argue some more?” Clarke asked, both tired and angry, but not at Bellamy.

“No,” he said. “We’ve got an hour. How many times do you think I can make you come before we need to go get packs ready?”

Her breath caught. “Do you really think now’s a good time? There are other things we can do to prepare.” But she didn’t _dislike_ the idea. The last time she and Bellamy had sex had been days before. And so much had happened since then.

“I have spent the last few days thinking that Grounders had you and that you could be dead,” Bellamy said, backing her into the shelves. “The last time I saw you, Miller was dragging you into the dropship and you were crying. Then you closed the door.” She blinked back sudden tears and he reached up to cup her face. “Hey, it had to be done. It’s okay. Everyone would’ve died if you hadn’t done it and I’m fine and here.”

Clarke gave in and pulled Bellamy to her, wrapping her arms around his waist as his slid over her shoulders. “When the dropship doors closed, I thought I’d killed you,” she said. “And then people just kept telling me you were, but I hoped and hoped you weren’t.” She kissed him. “Monty and Terra said you were probably losing your mind.”

“I was,” he said. “I was trying to get back to you and then when I got back to the dropship you were just gone. I didn’t have any idea where you were.”

“Think you can hold me up?” Clarke asked, pulling back to see him.

He smiled ruefully. “Not with the ribs and the shoulder. But we’ll take a raincheck on that. There’s plenty of other things we can do.”

He started undoing her pants and she dragged a hand through his hair. “I think I’d really like it if you fucked me against a wall. Or a table.” The thought of him bending her over something was incredibly appealing.

He groaned and shoved her pants and underwear down her thighs. “As soon as my ribs are better, I promise. Whatever you want.”

“Whatever the hell _we_ want, right?” she asked, breath sighing out as he ran two fingers up through her folds to circle her clit. He trailed his lips up her neck. She reached for his pants to undo them. “You too,” she said.

“You first,” Bellamy said. He kissed her for a few minutes as he rubbed her clit lazily. She hummed into the kiss and abandoned her attempts to get his pants off to wrap her arms around him.

“You could fuck me from behind,” she said when he pulled back. “I could brace myself on the shelves.”

“No,” he said. “No – I need to see you,” he said. “Later, when we’re back, we’ll find somewhere we can get horizontal or vertical or whatever. But right now, I just want to make you feel good. I kept seeing you cry when I closed my eyes.”

“Hey,” Clarke said gently and cupped his cheek. “I’m right here. I love you.”

Bellamy sighed and dropped his head to her shoulder before pressing a kiss to her neck. His fingers, which had stopped moving, began rubbing against her clit again with more purpose. “I love you. I didn’t think I could love you this much this fast,” he murmured. “It’s been a month.”

Clarke laughed softly and tugged Bellamy’s face up for a kiss. She knew what he meant. He’d known about them longer, but it hadn’t been nearly long enough for her to feel like this about him. She didn’t know how to put it into words, but she loved him so much. She could imagine how he’d been feeling when he looked for her outside the mountain.

She rocked her hips into hand and eyed the floor speculatively. She really did want to have sex that involved his dick inside of her and he had a point about wanting to see her while they had sex. She definitely wanted to see what it would be like with Bellamy behind her, but…

“Bellamy,” she said, voice more breathless than she’d anticipated. He hummed in response and started kissing up her neck. “Bellamy, what about the floor?”

“Not big enough,” he said and started sucking a mark into the join of her neck and shoulder. The fingers at her clit slid down and rubbed at her entrance, teasingly pressing in the barest amount.

“I could sit in your lap,” she said and felt his body still. She reached down to finish undoing his pants. “C’mon. We’ve got space for me to ride you.”

Bellamy groaned into her neck and scraped his teeth across her skin. “Okay. I think we can manage that.” He pulled back slightly to see her. “You think you’re ready for that?” He slowly pressed a finger inside of her.

“Sit your ass down, Bellamy Blake,” she said.

It took a couple minutes to get set up, to get a jacket under Bellamy’s ass because of the cold floor, they fumbled through getting her boots off and shoving their pants far enough down before she climbed over him and into his lap.

“How much time do you think we have left?” he asked. He grasped at her hips and rubbed his thumbs over the skin there. “This door only opens in, right?” He glanced up at the handle.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re not going to open it with your back. And we probably don’t have a lot of time.” She positioned Bellamy’s cock at her entrance and slid down slowly. “We’ll have to be fast.” Once she was seated fully in his lap, his thighs pressed against her lower back, she had to blink back tears.

“Clarke?” he asked, hands warm and large on her hips. “Are you – I knew you weren’t ready.”

“I love you,” she said. “It’s been an hour, maybe two and I – you’re not dead.”

Bellamy’s gaze softened and he said, “I know, sweetheart,” before leaning in to kiss her. She started to move, using what she learned the last time they’d done this. On every down stroke she swiveled her hips and ground her clit into him.

Soon the slow pace they’d started with turned frantic and they were panting into each other’s mouths. Bellamy slid his hands up her sides and said, “Off, gotta get this off.” Clarke ripped her shirt off and Bellamy’s eyes darkened. “Front clasp?”

“Easy access,” she said, and he undid the hooks on the bra she’d worn out of Mount Weather. Not that she’d been thinking about sex with Bellamy when she’d put the bra on. “Get your shirt off, babe,” she said and shoved his shirt up. He yanked it off and his hands went back to her hips to help pull her down.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, thumbs rubbing over her hip bones. “We’re running out of time.”

“Shut up,” Clarke panted out. “I’m the one doing all the work here.”

“Not much space here,” he said, but he planted the hand of his good arm on the floor and bucked up into her on the next stroke down. She gasped out a breath at the feeling and he did it again and again until she slammed down and stayed down, hands scrabbling at his chest as she came. His lips crashed into hers to muffle her moans, but only a few seconds later he grunted and bucked up into her again.

“Did you call me babe?” Bellamy asked.

“Uh,” Clarke said. “We need to go get packs and then find Raven.”

Bellamy smirked at her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “We better get dressed then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought killing Sterling off was stupid...so I didn't. I also start to use minor characters/guest stars more frequently from now on. 
> 
> I would also like to reiterate that the timeline of this show makes no sense and the writers' room did a terrible job of lining up what's happening outside the mountain with what's happening inside the mountain. And they all heal freakishly fast. Clarke's face is all busted up and in the next episode there's barely anything left. Which I assume was for the makeup department's benefit, but by my count Season 1 takes 29 days and Season 2 takes 19 days and with that many stitches in her forehead she'd have a busted face for more than one episode.


	18. Chapter 18

Raven dropped a duffle bag on a rock as they walked up to the flung off piece of the Ark at the fence with their packs. “Scored you a couple extra clips,” she said quietly.

“My mom’s in surgery and the team going after Kane just left. We should too,” Clarke said.

“Did you find Octavia?” Bellamy asked.

“No,” Octavia said, rounding the bit of wreckage. “ _I_ found _you_. I’m not letting you leave here without me.”

“Octavia,” Clarke started to say, but she was cut off.

“They’re headed for Lincoln’s village. I’ve been there. Have you?” Bellamy looked down, hiding a smile. “Has she?”

“You done?” he asked.

Clarke lifted a pack, which Bellamy handed to Octavia. “What’s this?”

“Your pack,” Bellamy said. He smiled as Octavia shrugged it on. “Lead the way.”

Octavia stepped to the fence, but Raven held out her cane. “Whoa. Not so fast Pocahontas.” She touched her cane to the open wires on the fence and it sparked.

Octavia’s head whipped around to see if the closest guard had heard anything, but his back was still to them. “I thought you said it was handled,” Clarke hissed. She’d wondered why the fence looked so open. Now she knew why.

“It is,” Raven said and reached down for a walkie. “Shut her down, Wick.” The radio clicked twice, and she tested the fence again. “Handled.”

Octavia climbed through, Bellamy following after. Clarke followed and they kept low as they made their way to the tree line.

They kept a steady pace until it started getting dark, hurrying so they could find a place to camp for the night. They worked quickly and soon had a small fire going. Bellamy volunteered to take the first watch and Clarke curled up at his side. She made an effort to try to sleep, but she couldn’t. All she could think about was her friends and what would happen to them if they didn’t get out. After what felt like hours she gave up and looked up at Bellamy.

He met her gaze with a small smile. She sat up and he put his arm around her, pulling her in close. “Do you want me to take over? I’m not going to get any sleep,” she said.

“I’ll sleep when we find Finn.”

“Sleep deprivation isn’t good for you,” she said, and his look clearly said, ‘same goes for you.’ She sighed and tucked herself more firmly into his side, resting her head on his shoulder. “I haven’t been sleeping well since the door to the dropship closed.”

Bellamy nodded and they sat, staring at the fire, for a moment. “You haven’t seen him, Clarke,” he said, and Clarke knew he was talking about Finn. “Losing you, the others, the war, it changed him. He executed the Grounder that drew us the map, the one that had your dad’s watch.”

What? That wasn’t Finn. Finn wanted peace, had always talked about wanting peace.

“Pulled the trigger without even blinking and walked away,” Bellamy continued.

“That doesn’t sound like Finn,” she managed to say.

“No,” Bellamy said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t. I saw what he was capable of and still I let him go with Murphy, Sterling, and automatic rifles.”

“Murphy wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Finn or any of us,” Clarke said.

“When we got back to the dropship and no one was there, we assumed it was the Grounders.”

“Of course, you did,” she said. “You couldn’t have known it was the Mountain Men. No one could have.”

Bellamy sighed heavily. “How long until chocolate cake turns into being hung upside down and drained for their blood?”

“I don’t know. But we don’t have much time,” Clarke said.

“Okay. First, we find Finn, then our people in Mount Weather.”

“And Lincoln,” Octavia said from her spot where she was apparently not sleeping. Clarke didn’t know what had happened with Lincoln, but she got the feeling it wasn’t good. Octavia sat up. “I think we’ve slept long enough.”

Clarke and Bellamy exchanged a glance but followed Octavia’s lead and began to pack up.

Octavia led them until daylight started to filter through the trees. Up ahead was a huge statue of a man sitting in a chair, made of white stone.

“This is it,” Bellamy said, looking up from the map. “Which way to the village?” Bellamy and Clarke looked to Octavia, who looked like she was going to cry. “O?” Bellamy asked hesitantly.

“The Reapers came from there,” she said, pointing to the statue with Lincoln’s sword. Bellamy glanced at the statue and then back to his sister.

 _Reapers_ Clarke thought with horror.

Octavia turned to her brother, face screwed up with grief. “I couldn’t save him, Bell.” He pulled her into his arms. “I couldn’t save him.

Clarke deeply regretted saying anything about Reapers and cannibalism in front of Octavia.

They began moving again after Bellamy had comforted his sister. They moved quickly, eager to find the others before anything bad could happen. Clarke couldn’t believe Finn would execute a Grounder. It just didn’t make sense.

Octavia said they were close when they heard it, gunfire. They ran and Clarke could only hope nothing terrible had happened. When they got to the village, Murphy was pointing his rifle at Finn, Sterling looked terrified, and Finn was on his knees, clutching his arm where blood was seeping through his fingers.

“Oh, thank God,” Sterling said when he saw them. “He was going to kill them, I think.” He gestured to the people gathered in a literal pen between the two groups.

Finn looked up and made eye contact with Clarke. He looked…sick. “I found you,” he breathed out and she backed into Bellamy as Octavia rushed forward.

Finn made a move as if to stand up, but Murphy stepped closer and poked him with the barrel of the rifle. “Stay down, Spacewalker.” He looked up at Bellamy. “You got any restraints or anything? I really don’t trust him right now.”

“You shot him,” Sterling said, sounding panicked.

“He was gonna shoot that guy,” Murphy said, jerking his head over to a younger Grounder standing warily to the side.

Octavia was pulling the barriers holding the Grounders away and Clarke moved to join her, finally breaking eye contact with Finn.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “They had you. Where are the others?”

“Nyko, is anyone hurt?” Octavia asked. The man she was speaking to had a firm grip on a young boy. “What did he do?”

“He set fire to our homes,” Nyko said. “He demanded to know where your people were.”

Bellamy was busy binding Finn’s hands behind his back, clearly not caring about the injury to Finn’s arm. Clarke looked over at him, feeling helpless. Finn looked off kilter still and was trying to catch her eyes.

“Mount Weather has your people,” Clarke told Nyko. “They’re torturing them. The Reapers are working with them. I escaped.”

Nyko looked like he was digesting that information. He looked to Octavia. “You need to leave.”

Octavia nodded. “I’m sorry.” She looked at Finn, her eyes going flinty. “We’ll take care of him.”

They left the village with Octavia in the lead. Murphy kept his rifle trained on Finn for the first part of the journey, Sterling taking over after. Clarke stayed at the back of the group, as far from Finn as she could. Bellamy stayed by her side the whole time. Finn kept twisting his head back to look at her. Clarke thought it was better this way, where she could avoid his gaze instead of having it burn into her back.

“I want to get back before dark,” Bellamy said quietly to her.

“I don’t think we can get back before dark,” Clarke said. “It took us hours to get here.”

“Well then we’ll have to move quickly,” Bellamy said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with him.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “It’s like he’s a completely different person. What do we tell Raven?”

“Is she still in love with him?”

“I don’t think that matters. They were friends first. What are we looking at in terms of retaliation, do you think?”

“O would know, but there’s got to be some kind,” Bellamy said. “He set the village on fire and was going to kill them because of jackets.”

 _I found you_.

She shivered and took a sidestep closer to Bellamy. “I guess we trust Murphy now,” she murmured.

Her mother was at the gates waiting for them when they reached the camp gates. The sun had gone down hours ago and even thought Clarke wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation with her mother, she was looking forward to the safety of the camp’s walls. There were a handful of guards waiting there too.

“I explicitly said no one was to leave the camp,” Abby said, but she looked more tired and worried than angry.

Clarke had opened her mouth to speak when Octavia spoke up. “Finn tried to kill a bunch of innocent Grounders to find your daughter. Murphy shot him. You should take a look at his arm. We didn’t patch him up.”

“There’s an exit wound,” Clarke sighed. That was as far as she’d been willing to go. It hadn’t looked like it was bleeding terribly, and she’d wanted to stay away from Finn. Bellamy had hovered when she’d examined Finn, but surprisingly so had Murphy. As they walked back to Camp Jaha, Finn’s shoulders had slowly slumped and hunched.

“Should we expect retaliation?” Abby asked, startled. She looked through the group to where Clarke and Bellamy were standing at the back.

“Probably,” Octavia said. “We’re lucky he only torched part of the place and didn’t kill any of them. They were all children and elderly.”

Abby sighed. “Alright. Let’s go. Phillips, can you take the kids to their quarters. Finn, come with me.”

One of the guards nodded and led them away. To Clarke’s relief, Byrne escorted Finn and her mother to Medical.

When they reached the quarters – two rooms side by side – it was clear that Abby had intended for the girls to sleep in one and the boys in the other. Monroe was there waiting in a room with four beds while the other had three.

“I’m going to go find Mel,” Sterling said, instead of going into either room.

“Murphy, if you try to kill me, I’ll slit your throat,” Octavia said and walked into the room with four beds. Phillips looked concerned at that statement and Bellamy was concerned when Murphy followed her into the room.

“Where’s Finn?” Monroe asked, moving to stand in the hallway. 

“Finn tried to kill a bunch of innocent Grounders so he’s in Medical. And hopefully not sleeping in there tonight,” Bellamy said, gesturing to the room his sister and Murphy were in. He stared at Sterling.

“Guess I’m not going to go find Mel,” the other boy sighed and headed in.

“You want us to move the other bed just in case?” Monroe asked. “It’s not like anyone _wants_ to sleep in the same room as you two.”

“I can take care of myself,” Octavia said.

“I’m not gonna kill anyone,” Murphy said. “Jesus. Also, you all tried to kill me first.”

Phillips looked very concerned.

Bellamy shrugged, but with Monroe’s help they managed to get the third bed out of the smaller room and into the other one. “We’ll see you all in the morning,” he told the others before he pulled Clarke after him into the other room. He closed the door and waited for Phillips’s bootsteps to fade away. “Think they’re going to let us out of these rooms in the morning?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke said, sitting heavily on one of the beds. The weight that had been on her shoulders since she’d woken up in Mount Weather – maybe even since that spear went into Jasper’s chest – felt heavier than ever. What the fuck was going on? Most of her friends were trapped in Mount Weather, her mom didn’t realize she wasn’t a child anymore, and something was dangerously wrong with Finn.

Bellamy sat next to her. “Do you think you can sleep?” he asked. “We should try.”

Clarke rested her head on Bellamy’s shoulder. “I’m exhausted,” she said. This whole planet was exhausting.

“Come on,” Bellamy said and pulled her to her feet. “Do we try and fit on one bed, push the two together, or put both mattresses on the floor?”

She eyed the beds. They were small, but if they pushed them together it would result in a gap between the two mattresses. “Let’s try and fit and if that doesn’t work then we’ll sleep on the floor. I miss our bed.”

Once they were ready for bed, he curled up behind her and pulled her close. It was a tight fit on the bed, but she didn’t mind. Having Bellamy close was comforting. “I might have a nightmare,” she whispered. After all the things she’d seen over the last few days, she’d be surprised if she didn’t.

“I got you,” Bellamy said and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “Though we’re probably in the same boat there.”

In the morning she woke with Bellamy still wrapped around her, a banging coming from the door. “Up and at ‘em, big brother,” Octavia said from the other side.

Bellamy groaned and nuzzled the back of Clarke’s neck. “I’m up, go away!”

“If you’re not out in five minutes, I’m coming whether you’re naked or not.”

“We’re up,” Bellamy said. He was still for another minute before he leaned over to kiss Clarke. “She will, by the way.”

“We need to talk to my mom about Mount Weather. And how to prepare for winter. People are going to die if they don’t start working on that now.”

“You think they’re going to listen to us?” Bellamy asked.

“Probably not, but we have to try.”

Her mother was speaking quietly with Byrne and Sinclair in the makeshift council room but cut off as soon as they showed up. “Yes?”

“We need to talk about Mount Weather and preparing for winter,” Clarke said.

“There’s no way there’s enough food here to sustain everyone for the winter,” Bellamy said. “We need to work on that.”

“And we need to talk about what we’re going to do for Mount Weather,” Clarke said.

“We’re currently gathering information,” her mother said, arms folded over her chest. “You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”

“We don’t need to worry,” Bellamy said. “Our friends are in there possibly being tortured right now.” Clarke reached for Bellamy’s hand and laced her fingers through his. He squeezed back tightly.

Abby sighed. “You don’t need to be involved then. You can feel free to worry, but we can handle it.”

“How are you gathering information?” Clarke asked. “I’m the only one that’s been in there. You need me in on this.”

“Clarke, we can handle this. You don’t need to concern yourself with this.”

Clarke stared at her mother, entirely unimpressed. “I have no valid input on Mount Weather, then. I couldn’t possibly have anything of use to add. You don’t know what it’s like there. They’ve got all the kids in a room together, a dorm. The Grounders are in cages stacked on top of one another over two levels. I wasn’t there long, but I studied it.”

“Clarke,” her mother said sharply. “We’re here now. You don’t need to worry about everything on your own now.”

“You’re not prepared to survive here,” Bellamy said. Clarke glanced at him to see he was glaring at her mother, which did actually make her feel better about things. “We know how to survive on the ground. You don’t.”

“We all took Earth Skills, Mr. Blake,” Abby said coolly.

“Mom, we have practical experience with preparing for winter. And the first time it rains there’s going to be a mud pit outside. It’s going to be even worse when it snows. You shouldn’t have cut down all the trees here.”

“We all took Earth Skills,” Abby repeated. “You’re not the only one who did well in the courses.” Another guard stepped into the room and spoke quietly to Abby. Clarke couldn’t hear what he said, but Abby nodded and dismissed the guard. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re about to start questioning the three at the Grounder village.”

“Mom,” Clarke started to say.

“Clarke, I’m here now. The adults are here. We’ve got things under control now.” She turned and left the two of them alone in the room.

Bellamy let out a harsh breath and turned, stomping out of the room. Clarke kept hold of his hand and followed, catching up and walking alongside him. “I know she’s your mom, but she’s really pissing me off.”

“She’s pissing me off too,” Clarke said. “This is ridiculous. How can they get any intel on a mountain fortress when I’m the only one who’s been inside of it?”

She’d known things were going to be different when the Ark came down, but this was ridiculous. She couldn’t have anticipated things with Mount Weather, but they knew what was going on and how to survive the Earth. They’d figured it out on their own without any adults involved. And it had been working before the Grounders attacked the dropship.

Bellamy led them to their room and pulled her in. As soon as the door was closed, he tugged her into his arms and buried his face in her neck. “I love you, but I _really_ don’t like your mom. Sorry.”

“I don’t like my mom right now,” Clarke said, running her hands up and down his back. “I’m glad she’s not dead…but I still haven’t forgiven her yet. I don’t care that she doesn’t like you either. She doesn’t get a say in what we have.”

“Well, according to some pretty terrible books and movies from a couple centuries ago, your mother-in-law isn’t supposed to like you.”

Clarke went still. “Isn’t that jumping a few steps?” she asked carefully. They were soulmates and he’d called her his girlfriend, but jumping to calling her mom his mother-in-law was a pretty big leap. Marriage was a pretty big leap.

He pressed a kiss to her throat and stood straight, sliding his hands to her hips. “Probably, but girlfriend’s mom sounds like a mouthful.” He shrugged. “You’re my soulmate and I love you.”

“I love you too,” Clarke said. “And I mean it, I don’t care what she thinks. You’re mine. She doesn’t get a say in that.”

Later, after finding breakfast and wandering around to try and find their friends, they were gathered back in the workshop. Sterling had found them when he was released from his inquisition, but Murphy and Finn were still being questioned. Not that Clarke particularly wanted to be near Finn. Once they’d all gathered in the workshop Clarke and Bellamy explained that the new Chancellor didn’t want to hear anything they had to say.

“They’re going to get people killed,” Octavia said.

“I don’t know why they won’t listen to you,” Wick said from the back of the room. “You’re the ones that know what you’re doing.”

“My mother thinks I’m a kid,” Clarke said. “She thinks we’re all children.”

“I mean, technically we are,” Monroe said. “Bellamy and Raven are the only ones over 18.”

“Pretty sure you don’t count as a child once you’ve been to war. I told your mom you weren’t,” Raven said. “After she slapped me for helping you get out.”

“She slapped you?” Clarke asked, horrified.

“Better than a shocklashing,” Raven shrugged, looking away.

Clarke darted a quick glance to Wick, who looked decidedly not furious in a very carefully restrained sort of way. “Did my mom shocklash you?”

“No. Kane shocklashed her for helping them get out to find you,” Raven said.

She didn’t know what her face did, but Bellamy slid his arm around her waist and tugged her into his side. “She won’t listen to me about Mount Weather,” she said. “I don’t know how long we have, but it’s not long. They’re going to start using our people. They may have already.”

“Do you know how many parents are here?” Wick asked. “Of your friends, I mean. I know Miller’s dad’s a guard, but I’m sure the others won’t be happy that the Chancellor isn’t working on getting their kids out.”

“Especially if you mention she stopped caring as soon as I got here,” Clarke said, liking the idea. Bellamy made a noise of protest and the arm around her tightened. “What? According to what you said, it’s true.”

“I don’t like the idea of dragging you into this though,” Raven said. “Things are already weird enough around here.” She paused, looking cagey. “And there’s already a couple of rumors.”

“How are there already rumors?” Bellamy asked. “And about what?”

“Well it wasn’t a secret about how you shot Jaha,” Raven said cautiously. “Everyone was looking for you. And since you and Clarke had a very public reunion yesterday…”

“And?” Octavia asked.

“People are saying your brother only got a pardon because of Clarke,” Wick said when Raven didn’t seem to want to answer. “Using varying levels of colorful language as to how the pardon was obtained.”

Bellamy’s jaw tensed but Clarke felt a laugh bubble out of her. Everyone looked at her in surprise. “My mom wasn’t even on the Council when Jaha pardoned him,” she said. “I wasn’t even talking to her then. I mean, I don’t like that people think he didn’t earn it, but I don’t care what people think of me.” She shrugged. “I know who my friends are.”

“And we’re going to get the rest of them,” Bellamy said.

“You should talk to Miller about other parents,” Wick said. “If you’re going to go with that plan.”

The door to the workroom opened suddenly and they all turned, freezing. Sinclair stood here and looked surprised to see everyone gathered. “Ah, well then,” he said. “Mr. Wick, don’t you have work to be doing?”

“Plans are already sketched out. Reyes is beating them all up,” Wick said. “We’ll have the water purifiers good to go by end of day.”

“Why do we need purifiers?” Monroe asked.

“That’s what I said,” Raven said. “There’s a river not far from here and the rain is drinkable.”

“This place is going to turn into a mud pit when it rains,” Monroe muttered.

“I told my mom that. She didn’t seem to care,” Clarke said.

“Miss Reyes,” Sinclair said. “The Council has made this a priority.”

“It’ll be done. But the easiest way is to filter it and then boil it,” Raven said. “But Wick’s plan isn’t terrible.”

Sinclair nodded. “Your input is valuable,” he told Raven. He looked at the others gathered in the room. “All of your input is valuable. You were all here before we were. You know more about surviving here. Mr. Wick, if you’re done with the water purification you could get back to the radio.”

“Byrne literally shot it out of the sky,” Raven said. “It didn’t do anything.”

“It brought me here,” Clarke said and smiled at Raven when she looked over.

“Helium balloon’s the way to go,” Wick said.

“Try to think of something else, but I’ll have a word with Byrne,” Sinclair said.

“Idea was all Reyes’s boss,” Wick said. “And I’m pretty sure it’s not like they don’t already know we’re here. The Mountain Men found us easily enough and the crash was pretty obvious.”

“Good work, Miss Reyes,” Sinclair said and left after giving Wick a pointed look, closing the door behind him.

“So that was weird,” Octavia said after a minute of silence.

“Sinclair’s cool,” Wick said. “He’s not actually on the Council, but he’s a department head so he has some say. He also – and don’t spread this – he thinks half the Council members are pricks.”

“Well they are,” Clarke said. “I grew up with them.” She glanced at the group. “We should split up though. If my mom finds us all in here, she’ll know we’re up to something.”

“Go talk to Miller’s dad about hunting,” Wick said. “We’re going to starve before long and the guards _do not_ know how to hunt.”

“And if your mom and the Council – whatever’s left of it anyways – won’t listen to your intel, you should tell us everything,” Octavia said.

Later that night, alone in their now single room, Clarke and Bellamy lay on the mattresses they’d dragged to the floor to make a more comfortable bed. Abby had figured out the nature of the sleeping arrangements and wasn’t exactly pleased about it.

“I don’t know why she didn’t expect this,” Clarke said as she ran her fingers through Bellamy’s hair. He was curled around her, head resting on her chest. His feet were sticking off of the edge of the mattress and touching the cold metal floor. “She knew you were my soulmate when she put you on the ship.”

“Well, she didn’t know I’d tried to kill Jaha when she put me on it,” Bellamy said. “Also, I’m from Factory station. I’m sure that factors into it.” He snorted, obviously pleased with himself.

“That was terrible, and you know it,” Clarke said, tugging on his hair lightly. They were both quiet for a moment. “I’m worried about our friends.”

“We’re going to save them,” Bellamy said firmly.

“How many will die before we get there? How many more Grounders are going to die?” Clarke asked. “We went from 82 to 52 so quickly.” She blinked back tears.

Bellamy pushed up to look at her. “We’re going to save them. Fuck the Council and I’m sorry, but fuck your mom if they won’t let us go. They’re _our_ people.”

“God you’re hot when you make speeches,” Clarke said, staring up at him. His eyes were dark and focused. But with that statement, he blinked and looked confused. “You have no idea how hot you were when you were convincing everyone to defend our home. And you were super hot when you were telling everyone they weren’t criminals and not to listen to me about the wristbands even if I really didn’t like what you were saying.”

A slow smirk spread across his lips. “You think I’m hot when I’m making speeches?”

“Don’t even,” Clarke said, rolling her eyes. “You know you’re hot.”

“You’re hot,” Bellamy said, leaning down to kiss her. “I mean it when I saw you take my breath away. And you are so incredibly hot when you’re angry, even when it’s with me.”

“You like it when I’m mad at you?” Clarke asked, rucking up the back of Bellamy’s shirt.

“No,” he said as she pulled it over his head. “I hated when you were mad at me. I think it’s hot though. I was really tempted to have hate sex with you in the beginning.”

“You wanted to have hate sex?” Clarke laughed. “Should I take someone else with me when I go yell at my mom tomorrow?” she teased as he pulled her shirt up and off.

“No,” Bellamy said. “I’ll behave myself.”

“You can feel free to get angry yourself,” Clarke said, pushing up as Bellamy undid the clasp on her bra to pull it off. “Because they’re being assholes and I think it’s hot too.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bellamy said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know they filmed in Canada cuz it's cheaper but they didn't do any research. You cannot see a mountain from the Lincoln memorial. Even if DC was bombed, there'd be buildings left behind if the entire statue of Lincoln survived but not the building around him or the reflecting pool. The lack of any effort for accurate geographical representation makes me angry. Also DC used to be a swamp. Nobody should want to live there in a post apocalyptic society. And nobody from this area calls it Washington DC and that sign with "ton DC" on it is a highway sign but there's absolutely no evidence of any highway left in the middle of the woods where it is. 
> 
> I also figured out that weird underground room where they had the meeting/Gustus attempt to ruin everything is supposed to be the Metro? I think it is anyways but I can't figure out what underground space with a metal gate and ugly tile is supposed to be. But that's blatantly not what the Metro looks like. And I know the bombs went off in our future, but the Metro has looked the same with the ugly red tile forever and it's going to keep having that ugly red tile for eternity. 
> 
> Also this is when things started to get weird with deviating from canon. Be aware this is 100% Bellarke trash and there will be some explanations for Finn's actions in the next few chapters.


	19. Chapter 19

Octavia didn’t wake them up the next morning. Octavia banging on the door and shouting at them would have been preferable to the nightmare of her friends in cages, hanging upside down, and falling into carts of dead bodies. She woke panting and covered in a cold sweat. Bellamy held her trembling body for almost half an hour before she needed to get out of the confining metal walls of their room and the Ark and get into open space and fresh air. 

As soon as she was outside, she took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. It was early, the sky had only just started to lighten. “I didn’t realize how much I love being outside until we were in the mountain,” she said. “No windows, no birds, no wind.”

“We’re going to need to build permanent structures at some point,” Bellamy said. “Want to walk the perimeter?”

“Are we going to spy on them for weaknesses or as a romantic thing?” Clarke asked, but she tucked herself into his side and began to walk.

“Why not both?” he asked, pressing a kiss to her brow.

The guards looked at them suspiciously, but they played up the ‘couple on a stroll’ element of their walk. They didn’t actually learn much that they didn’t know already, but they did get to see the guard change over.

“I’m not living in a tent again,” Bellamy said as they headed towards the makeshift commissary for breakfast. “It was fine when we landed, but it’s getting colder.”

“I liked our tent,” Clarke said. She frowned. “Did you get the furs out of the dropship?”

“The furs?” Bellamy asked.

“We pulled almost everything into the dropship, remember?” Clarke asked. “I doubt the Mountain Men wanted them, so they should still be on the second level. We should get them since you clearly didn’t.”

“They’ll hold,” Bellamy said. “Honestly, I feel like it’s a low priority compared to our friends.”

“It is, but I want that panther pelt back,” Clarke said. “You killed it, so we get to keep it. I don’t care what the Council says about allocation of resources.”

They spent the day going over Clarke’s intel, Raven and Wick’s intel on how the camp was functioning, and spying to see for themselves how the camp was functioning. It turned out that acting like a young couple desperately in love and very horny was an excellent cover. They’d managed to avoid getting caught in places they shouldn’t have been three times just by hurriedly making out against a wall or in a corner. Clarke certainly wasn’t complaining about it.

Later, after the sun had set and they’d had a meager dinner they sat at the bar. Somebody had gone out to the dropship to get Monty’s still but hadn’t bothered bringing anything else back, which all of the former residents of the dropship thought was beyond stupid. There was an entire bin of medical supplies and the second floor was full of furs and bedding. The fact that someone had set up a bar with tables and chairs was ridiculous.

The only plus side was that they didn’t seem to care that Clarke was under the drinking age on the Ark. The brunette behind the bar just handed her a mug of moonshine, no questions asked. They found a table and she laid the map of Mount Weather she’d drawn out between them.

“Okay, tell me again,” Bellamy said.

“It’s a labyrinth. We got to the damn through this tunnel,” she explained, pointing. “It’s all connected to the mine system. _That’s_ our way in.”

“Sure, if we can get past the Reapers and the Mountain Men,” Bellamy pointed out, sighing. “I swear to God, if your mom doesn’t sanction a mission soon, I’m going by myself.”

He wouldn’t, but only because she would leave with him. Octavia definitely would too and probably Monroe and Sterling. Clarke wasn’t sure where Murphy stood and she didn’t want to think about Finn.

“You won’t be by yourself,” she said pointedly. Movement at the entrance to the Ark over Bellamy’s shoulder drew her attention. He turned to see what she was looking at to see Finn stumble out of the Ark after Murphy.

“Guess the Inquisition’s over,” Bellamy said and turned back to her. Behind him, Finn started heading their way. Instinctually, she reached out for Bellamy’s hand and grasped it tightly. “What?” he asked.

Finn stopped at their table. “Hey,” he said, looking at her.

“Hey,” Bellamy said when it was clear Clarke wasn’t going to say anything.

Finn didn’t say anything else, he just stared at Clarke for a moment. He looked down at the map on the table. “Mount Weather?” he asked. Clarke nodded and looked down at it herself. Bellamy rubbed a thumb across her knuckles. “What’s the plan?”

“Still working on it,” she said stiffly.

“Ah, check it out,” Murphy said behind her. He sat down at the table next to her, cup of moonshine in his hand. Finn took that as his cue to sit next to Bellamy. “Salvaged Monty’s still from the dropship.”

Clarke barely suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. She was the one who told her mom where it was.

“Now, you know if they could just salvage Monty,” Murphy continued. Clarke looked at him incredulously. “Easy, it was just a joke.” Murphy looked to Finn, who looked away. “Okay. You tell her we were cleared?”

“No,” Finn said.

Of course they were cleared. Finn had only _tried_ to murder a bunch of people. In her name. She didn’t want him anywhere near the mission or another gun. And she wasn’t so sure that she wanted him near her either. Bellamy kept rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand and knocked a knee into hers under the table, out of sight.

“Well,” Murphy said. “Looks like our pardon for surviving includes our time on the ground. Now, bigger fish to fry, I guess.”

“We did what we had to,” Finn said. She kept her gaze locked on the map, but out of the corner of her eye she could see he was still staring at her. She glanced up and he said, “I gotta go,” before storming off.

Murphy whistled.

“Just because they pardoned you doesn’t mean I have,” Clarke said, turning to look at him.

“Clarke,” Raven said, walking over. “Beat it Murphy.”

“Well then,” he said, getting up. “Have a good one.”

“What’s up?” Bellamy asked.

Raven leaned in close. “I know why we haven’t heard from any of the other Ark stations,” she said. “Mount Weather’s jamming us.”

“Show us,” Bellamy said.

Raven led them to the workshop but didn’t turn any of the lights on, leaving the minimal circadian lights on. She leaned over the table to poke at a radio transceiver. “I tweaked the resonation and got this,” she said, turning it on. A strange sort of humming that alternated pitch came out instead of the static Clarke expected. “It’s on every frequency.”

“Is that what Monty heard on the black box?” Bellamy asked. “And wasn’t he saying he heard something before he disappeared? Did we wander into their range when we were out looking?”

Raven nodded. “Long range communication is totally screwed,” she said. “It’s also why the range on our walkies suck.”

“Mount Weather crashed the Exodus ship,” Clarke said.

“I guess they kind of did us a favor,” Bellamy said. Both women turned to him. “What? Sydney definitely would have tried to kill me and did you really want Coalition members to come looking for us?”

“Can you get around the signal?” Clarke asked Raven.

“Around it? No. But if I can get to the tower that broadcast it, I can make it go boom,” Raven said.

“No one is going anywhere,” came a voice at the door. Clarke turned to look at her mom just in time to see Bellamy roll his eyes. Byrne walked in after Abby.

“Mom, listen to me—”

“What do I have to do to get through to you?” Abby asked her. “You and your friends are not soldiers and continuing to act like you are puts lives at risk.”

“You don’t understand, Raven found something,” Clarke said. “Mount Weather is jamming our communications.”

“It’s true,” Raven said. “There could be other stations on the ground.”

“And more guards,” Bellamy pointed out.

“You said we don’t have enough people to fight a two-front war,” Clarke said. Abby was listening, which was a change. “Mom, we’re already fighting a war.”

“The Grounder retaliation for the Collins boy’s actions may happen at any time. When it does, we need every available man to defend this camp,” Byrne said.

“So, let us go,” Bellamy said, beating Clarke to the punch. “You said it yourself. We’re not soldiers.”

“You’re not gonna stop, are you?” Abby asked, sounding exhausted.

“Not until my friends are safe,” Clarke said.

“Our friends,” Bellamy said, though it sounded like he wanted to say ‘our people.’

“Okay,” Abby said, genuinely surprising Clarke. “But I’m coming with you.” And there was the other shoe.

“Ma’am, I just said,” Byrne started.

Abby held up a hand. “It’s been quiet for two days. Maybe Kane is making headway with the Grounder’s commander.” Probably not, but nice optimism, mom.

“Or maybe he’s dead and they’re massing against us as we speak,” Byrne said.

“Maybe,” Abby said. “Which is why we need more guards.” Byrne didn’t look happy.

“Then it’s settled,” Clarke said. “We’re going back to Mount Weather.”

“We’ll leave at dawn,” Abby said and turned to leave. Byrne followed after her.

Bellamy looked at Clarke and Raven. “Think they’ll let me have a gun?”

“Unlikely,” Raven said. “She’ll just bring guards.”

“Great,” Bellamy said. He paused. “I miss my axe.”

Clarke chuckled. “I’ll get you a new one. Wait, what happened to yours? You had it before the fight.”

“Kane confiscated it,” Bellamy scowled. “I think he gave it to the firewood team.”

“So I’ll just steal it back,” Clarke shrugged. “I don’t care. I found it and gave it to you. It’s yours.”

“Was that you trying to flirt with him then?” Raven asked. “You two had the weirdest flirting.”

“I brought her flowers,” Bellamy said defensively.

“Because you thought they would be useful,” Raven said.

“That was an excuse. And I knew only the sunflowers were useful,” Bellamy said. “The others were just because.”

“They were very pretty,” Clarke said, pressing a kiss to Bellamy’s cheek. “Also, Monty told me you asked if they were useful, so I fully knew it was flirting. You also got me willow bark. And a sketchbook.”

“Ah yes, practical gifts as flirting only,” Raven said.

“It works for me,” Clarke said.

Octavia woke them up again the next morning with threats of eating all their breakfasts if they didn’t make it out in time. When they made it to the gate and the group assembled there, Clarke stiffened.

“She’s bringing Finn?” she hissed at Bellamy.

His jaw tensed. “They may not give me a gun, but O’s got a sword.”

When they glanced back over Finn was staring at them intently. “Why does he keep trying to…flirt with me? Impress me? I don’t know. He knows I have you.”

“Finn doesn’t believe in soulmates,” Raven said behind them. “Thinks it doesn’t mean anything. Which was cool when I was eleven since we don’t match. Now it’s just weird. I guess he doesn’t believe in monogamy either.”

Clarke looked at Raven and saw Wick hovering at the entrance to the Ark. He looked miserable. “Do you want to find your soulmate?” she asked as the three headed to the rest of the group.

“I never thought I would,” Raven said. “And I didn’t need to. But how? Maybe. You two seem to be working out. But I don’t necessarily think I _need_ to.”

As they reached the others Clarke glanced back again. Wick was still there, hands in his pockets. Sinclair was standing next to him though. “But hey, if you two want to spice things up, let me know,” Raven said. “You’re both hot.”

Clarke laughed at Bellamy’s poleaxed expression and then saw the horrified expressions on Finn, Abby, and Octavia’s faces and laughed even more.

It felt good to laugh even if things were so bad. Things were probably going to be bad, but being down on a planet that kept trying to kill them showed her that you have to have joy and happiness where you can.

She’d admit to anyone who asked – except maybe the boy in question – that she was actively trying to avoid Finn. It was hard, given that the guards her mother brought along wanted to keep them in a tight cluster. Eventually they did loosen up the circle, so they were able to spread out more. Everyone was tense and wary of what might be out there, especially the guards. Clarke knew there were more things to be concerned about than they knew – wild boars, panthers, etc.

She could hear Octavia complaining to Bellamy a few steps ahead. Finn was at the front of the group, watching for signs of Grounders or anything else on the trail ahead.

“Don’t forget to look up,” Bellamy said, voice raised for the benefit of guards who hadn’t been. “The Grounders use the trees. That’s how we lost John Mbege.”

Abby pulled up next to Clarke, looking pleased. “You were right to have me bring them.”

“Don’t worry,” Clarke said. “Your guards will get there.”

“I know you’re worried about Finn,” Abby said.

“Thank you for voting to clear him.”

“He thought he was rescuing his friends. And he hadn’t actually done anything other than start a fire. The intent was there, but not the action.” Abby paused. “The real question is, is he gonna be able to clear himself?”

Behind her, Raven muttered something about monogamy under her breath.

They finally approached the base of Mount Weather. Clarke called a halt when she knew they were close enough to the river that acted as a boundary, both to assess the situation and to give Bellamy and Octavia a chance to sneak away unseen, but far enough away from any known entrances. There might be unknown ones, but she couldn’t do anything about that. Raven immediately pulled out binoculars and started scanning the mountain.

“There,” she said after a minute. “I see it.” Clarke took the binoculars Raven offered and found the satellite dishes quickly, scanning down to see the radio tower.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Clarke sighed as Abby took the binoculars to see for herself. “We’ll never spot the traps. We should set up camp here. Leave at first light.”

She and Raven turned to do just that, but Abby paused, eyes scanning the group. “We’re missing two.” She turned to Clarke. “Where the hell are they? Clarke, we are in enemy territory and their lives are my responsibility.”

“They went to find a way in,” Clarke said. They weren’t actually supposed to go in, just find any entrances she didn’t already know about. They were also going to look for Lincoln, but she wasn’t going to tell her mom that. And she’d be doing the same thing as Octavia if their positions were reversed.

“A way in,” Abby said quietly. “That is not what this mission is about.”

“It is for them,” Clarke said. She and Bellamy had quietly discussed it with Octavia before going to bed the night before.

Abby turned to one of the guards. “Find them. Bring them back.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said. “You two with me. Let’s go.”

“I’m going with them,” Finn said behind Clarke.

She turned and he had a gun in his hands. “Finn, wait.”

“We need you here,” Raven said.

“Why? So you can keep an eye on me?” he asked. “You’d have to be able to look at me to do that,” he told Clarke. She looked away.

“Finn,” Raven said quietly, stepping close.

“What do you think I’m gonna do?” he asked angrily, stepping back.

“Finn,” Clarke tried to say, but he turned and stormed after the guards, tossing the gun down on his pack after he passed it. “I’ll got get him,” she said, but she really didn’t want to. But she didn’t want Raven to do it either. She caught up to him quickly and called out, “Finn, come back.”

He stopped and turned, staring at her. “I wasn’t,” he started to say, but the sound of birds squawking and taking flight filled the air.

She whirled around. “What was that?”

A strange whirring sound and then – acid fog.

“Run!” Finn said and they took off.

Fuck. Their packs with the tents were with – fuck! Her mom and Raven. Bell and Octavia had theirs and the guards that went with after them had theirs too.

“Acid fog, take cover,” she shouted into the radio. “Mom, if you can hear me, use the tents!” Raven knew what to do. Bellamy had drilled them enough back at the dropship. “My tent! I forgot my pack!” she called back to Finn. She was never going anywhere without it again.

“It’s okay. We can make it to the bunker,” Finn said. She wasn’t entirely sure that was accurate given how far the bunker was, but she’d take it. She also really didn’t want to get stuck with him.

They made it, but barely. She clambered in the hatch first and Finn slammed it shut after him, plunging them into darkness. He turned his flashlight on. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.” Deeply winded, but okay.

She turned her own flashlight on, thankful that it had been clipped to her belt with the radio when she set off after Finn. She began to scan the space, freezing when it revealed a dead body. A chill went down her spine when she remembered what Bellamy had told her happened down here.

Finn paused next to her before moving to the bathroom. He returned a second later with the shower curtain to cover the body. He looked back at her and she looked away, going to find candles to light instead.

Finn was sitting at the table when she finished. She started to sit opposite him but swung around to pace instead. She was uneasy and felt jittery. She couldn’t deal with this. So instead she paced and worried about the others still out there.

Eventually Finn said, “Stop. I’m sure they’re fine. Everybody had tents.” She stared at him. “So first you can’t look at me. And now you’re looking at me like I’m the enemy.”

“I’m not looking at you like that.”

“Well, you don’t look at me the way you used to,” Finn said sadly.

“What way?” Clarke asked. “Are you talking about before Raven came down or…you were going to kill those people.”

“I thought they had you,” Finn said, standing. He came closer and held something out. It glinted silver in the candlelight. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give you this. It’s starting to feel like that moment might not come.” The face was scratched, she noticed, as she took her father’s watch from him. “I know how much it means to you.”

“Bellamy said you all had seen it,” she said, staring down at it. “I thought – I thought it was still out there.”

Finn sighed. “We could have been happy, Clarke.”

“No. We couldn’t,” she said, but her tone was soft. “Maybe if we…” she trailed off. “You didn’t say anything about Raven. And you kept it up even after she was here. But I knew about Bellamy and soulmarks our first week down here. And he knew before the dropship even launched. It wouldn’t have worked.”

Finn sat back down at the table. “He’s an asshole.”

“Yes, he is. I’m not going to deny that. I’m sorry you’re not happy, Finn. But I am.”

At some point Finn went up to see if the fog was gone. He dropped back down and said, “The fog has cleared. We have to go.”

She took one last look at the body of the man he’d killed and followed him up. They made their way back to Camp Jaha in silence. Clarke hoped and hoped that everyone would be there waiting for them. Bellamy and Octavia weren’t in sight when they reached the gates of the camp. Raven, her mother, and the guards were all there. Clarke hugged her mom.

“Bell and Octavia?” she asked.

“They know to rendezvous here,” Abby said.

“Have you tried the radio?” Clarke asked.

“Still jammed,” Raven said.

“You didn’t blow the tower?”

“Raven figured out a way we could listen to Mount Weather,” Abby said. “If we took out the antenna we wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Okay. That was a good reason not to blow the tower. She was just surprised her mom agreed to it. “What about the other Ark stations?”

“We don’t know if they made it,” Abby said. “What we do know is that 47 of our people are being held prisoner in that mountain. We’re gonna get them out.” Her mom pulled her into a hug.

“Help! Help me!” a man shouted from the woods.

The guards scurried into position and Clarke thought _Well fuck_ as Thelonius Jaha appeared. Then once he told them the Commander’s message of leave or die she thought _Fuck that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI since Season Three doesn't exist here, the City of Light isn't an evil AI. 
> 
> So I'm struggling a little bit with writing at the moment. I'm on chapter 25, so there's a significant buffer, and it's episode 9/10. Part of it's working 40+ hours a week so I'm hoping to get through the rough spot over the next two weeks between having Christmas Eve and Day off this week and three Personal Holidays next week that need to get used up. The story in its entirety is 289 pages and 129,776 words long at this point. And to think this was supposed to be two chapters long when I started writing it.


	20. Chapter 20

Almost an hour after Jaha arrived and Clarke had summarily been barred from any discussions, he and Abby stepped out of the Ark in front of an assembled crowd to deliver a speech explaining that they had to leave. The more he spoke the more irritated and angrier Clarke got. Ultimately it got to the point where she couldn’t help but speak up. “If we leave, what happens to our people in Mount Weather?”

Jaha didn’t look happy that she’d spoken up. “As your mother said, that is a very difficult decision to make,” Jaha said firmly. “But the time has come—”

“You sent us down here to die,” Sterling said. He looked nervous as everyone looked at him. “You said you sent us down here for a second chance. But you sent us down here to die. There’s 47 of us trapped in that mountain. They’re going to drain them of their blood and kill them just so the people that live there can heal themselves. And you’re saying it’s a difficult decision about whether to save 47 teenagers or let them get tortured and murder?”

Jaha looked angry, but the crowd was muttering. “The time has come,” he continued loudly, “for each and every one of us to ask is this how the story of our people ends? Did we come all this way to die tomorrow? Because if we’re not gone by the time that sun rises, that is exactly what will happen.”

Clarke and Abby made eye contact. “No decision’s been made,” Abby said. “In the meantime, please report to your station supervisor and gather emergency supplies.”

The crowd broke up and Monroe and Sterling moved towards her. “We’re not going, even if they make everyone, right?” Monroe asked.

“Not a chance. We’ll go to the dropship,” Clarke said. “Miller’s dad’ll probably come with us too.”

A hand grabbed her arm and Sterling’s face brightened. Clarke turned to see Bellamy, looking wary. She reached up to cup his face and scanned him for any possible injuries from the acid fog. “Hey, where have you been? Where’s Octavia?”

“In the dropship,” he said, which made no sense. “You need to come back with me right now.” Was Octavia injured by the fog?

“Why, what’s happened?”

“I’ll explain it on the way. Bring a med kit. Meet me at Raven’s gate,” he said and turned to go.

“Bellamy, is Octavia okay?” she asked.

He looked back at her, worried. “Physically. Emotionally not so much.”

Lincoln. It had to be about Lincoln then.

“Go with Bellamy,” Finn said. “Your mom said no decision’s been made. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”

“Bellamy, go with Clarke. We’ll tell Raven,” Sterling said, gesturing to Monroe. “She also doesn’t know about the evacuation yet.”

“Evacuation?” Bellamy asked.

“The Grounder Commander said we’re all gonna die tomorrow if we haven’t left,” Monroe said. “Jaha wants to leave, which is bullshit. You guys go do whatever you need to at the dropship. We’ll handle things here.”

“Jaha’s here?” Bellamy asked incredulously.

“I have no idea how he got down here but he is,” Clarke said. “Let’s keep the two of you away from each other as long as possible.”

Bellamy stood watch outside the Medical tent as she swiped a kit. She worried about what shape she’d find Lincoln in when she got to the dropship and shoved some extra stuff in her pockets and the kit just in case. Every scenario she imagined was terrible.

Once they’d snuck out of the camp, he told her what they’d found at Mount Weather.

“He’s a Reaper?” she asked, freezing in place.

He turned to her and cupped her cheek. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’m not going to let him hurt you or O.”

Her mind turned to images of the tunnels and carts of dead bodies. “How? How did this – God, I told all of you what I saw in the mines. Now _she_ knows.”

“She’s pretty shaken up,” Bellamy said, and they started moving again. “He doesn’t recognize us at all.”

The ground surrounding the dropship looked as terrible as it had a few days ago and she shivered as they walked towards it. Bellamy led her in and urged her up to the third floor. When her head cleared the hatch, she could see Octavia huddled against the wall. As soon as she was all the way up, something – Lincoln she realized with horror – lunged at her from the shadows into the light. She jerked back and Bellamy scrambled up the last rungs to press against her back.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said, and she hunched in on herself, horrified. Lincoln didn’t even look like himself anymore. “He’s restrained.” Bellamy placed a hand on her back.

“I can’t believe we’re back here again,” she said, staring as Lincoln thrashed against the chains that kept his arms outstretched.

“Can you help him?” Octavia asked, looking and sounding defeated.

“I don’t know,” Clarke said honestly. She didn’t know how this had happened or what could have made it happen. What was President Wallace doing? “I knew Mount Weather controlled the Reapers…I had no idea they were creating them.”

“If they do that to Lincoln, what are they doing our friends?” Bellamy asked.

Hours and hours had gone by. Moonlight was now coming through the hole Murphy had blown in the dropship and Clarke was no closer to figuring anything out. It didn’t help that Lincoln never seemed to tire and she couldn’t get near him without him literally trying to bite her. Octavia was getting increasingly frustrated and upset.

Then, mid scream, he started to do something different. His eyes closed and she started shaking, his head tilted down towards his neck.

“He’s convulsing,” she said.

“So, what does it mean?” Octavia asked. 

Clarke didn’t really know, but as the flashlight beam from Octavia shook, Clarke noticed a shine. Blood. “What happened to his leg?” she asked and turned around to look at Octavia, who looked slightly haunted.

Her voice was firm though when she said, “I shot him.” Octavia looked down and Clarke could see the sheen of tears in her eyes.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

When she turned back, he wasn’t convulsing anymore. She took a step towards him and he lunged at her, but she thought she saw something mixed in with all the blood. “Can you shine the light on his neck?” He clearly didn’t like the light in his face and shied away from it, but it gave her the view she needed. “Needle marks.” She moved slightly closer to get a better look.

“You think he’s been drugged?” Bellamy asked.

“Maybe,” she started, but something smashed into her head as Lincoln grabbed at her with his now free arm, holding her hair.

Octavia rushed them, calling for Lincoln and went flying. Bellamy beat at Lincoln’s arm to free her, but Lincoln grabbed Bellamy around the throat and headbutted him.

Lincoln got his other arm free and wrestled the chains off as the three of them lay there, stunned and winded. The chains around his ankles kept him from anything from the floor when he lunged at them. He scrabbled at the floor, trying to get to them, and just kept screaming.

Bellamy crawled and scrambled away, getting the shock baton just as Lincoln broke the chains from the floor. He slammed Bellamy to the ground before he could make contact with the shock baton and started punching. Bellamy got an arm up in time, but Lincoln was mindless with rage.

Clarke rushed forward, only thought to stop this. Lincoln punched her in the stomach, and she tumbled back. Octavia slammed a metal pole into Lincoln’s back and then across his face when he looked up at her. He went flying off Bellamy and didn’t move as Octavia collapsed next to Bellamy on her knees “Bell?” she asked.

“M’kay,” he mumbled. “You? Clarke?”

Clarke pulled herself over to Bellamy. Lincoln had gotten a good hit in before Bellamy got his arm up, but they were all breathing. Bellamy grasped Octavia’s forearm with one hand and raised his other to Clarke’s face. Clarke looked over at Lincoln. “We’ve got to tie him up better. And quick.”

“Keep him on his back,” Bellamy said, pushing up. “Less leverage for him to break free.”

They covered him with the cargo net and strapped it down, weaving and layering the chains and seatbelts through them to keep him down. He started to wake not long after they were done.

“We have to stop the bleeding and get the bullet out,” Clarke said. “Hold his leg down,” she directed Bellamy.

Lincoln started groaning as she pressed at his wound. Octavia tried to pour some water from her canteen in his mouth, but he lunged at her as much as he could, causing it to spill and for her to cry out. Bellamy exchanged a worried glance with Clarke. 

“I’ll get some more, then,” Octavia said, voice trembling. She picked up the canteen and headed for the hatch.

Bellamy rose and stopped her. “O, once the drug is out of his system, he’ll be okay.”

“You can’t protect me from this one, big brother,” Octavia said.

Bellamy looked lost as Octavia climbed down. “Help me get the bullet out,” Clarke said.

Lincoln screamed as she removed it, but there were screams of pain instead of mindless rage. She blinked back tears as he fought against her.

“Your mom would be proud,” Bellamy said when she was wrapping the wound with clean bandages.

“My mom would know how to save him.” They both got up from their crouches and Clarke moved to the pilfered first aid kit. The hatch opened and Octavia climbed up. A head followed and Clarke realized it was Nyko from the Grounder village that Finn had attacked. Octavia looked at her brother nervously.

Bellamy lunged for the rifle.

“Bellamy, don’t,” Octavia said, stepping in front of Nyko. “He’s Lincoln’s friend and their healer.”

Lincoln started grunting and convulsing again. This time, foam bubbled out of his mouth. Nyko knelt on the opposite side of Lincoln’s head from Clarke and unrolled an array of small glass bottles strapped to leather. He took one out and uncorked it.

“What is that?” Clarke asked.

Nyko said something in the Grounder’s language. It took a second, but she realized why it sounded familiar. “Wait!” she said, catching the drop of liquid before it could touch Lincoln.

Nyko pulled a knife on her and Bellamy said, “Back off!” stepping forward. “Right now.”

Clarke repeated what Nyko had said, what Anya had said before she snapped a man’s neck. “It’s what they say before death.” Octavia’s gaze snapped to her. “He’s not trying to heal him. He’s trying to kill him.” Nyko glared at her over Lincoln’s body, knife still in hand.

“Nyko,” Octavia said. “Is it true?”

“Yes. Death is the only way.”

“Hold on,” Clarke said. “There could be a way to bring him back.”

“None that I’ve ever seen,” Nyko said and tossed the knife down to the floor.

Monroe’s voice floated through the hatch as she climbed up, “Finn says we have to go but that’s bullshit.” She paused when she saw Nyko.

“It’s fine,” Clarke said. “Finn says we have to go?”

“I came cause I’m faster, but Jaha and your mom voted to leave,” Monroe said. “Which is bullshit because our people are still in that mountain. Sterling and Raven say they aren’t going, but we’re pretty sure they’re going to make us. Raven’s grabbing some supplies and says Wick’ll help sneak anyone out. I don’t know if he’s going to try and stay with us though. The plan’s to move back in here.”

“Your people should leave,” Nyko said. “The heda will kill all of you if you stay.”

“Our people are in that mountain,” Bellamy said. “We’re not abandoning them.”

“I’m not going to abandon your people that are in there either,” Clarke told Nyko.

Octavia went still, looking at Lincoln. “Clarke?” she asked. “I don’t—”

Clarke looked at Lincoln. “He’s not breathing,” she said and climbed onto him before starting chest compressions. Chest compressions were more important than rescue breathing, and she wanted to stay far away from Lincoln’s teeth.

He gasped for air and Octavia sagged with relief. She smiled softly at Clarke before hovering at Lincoln’s head.

“He was dead,” Nyko said, staring down at Lincoln in stunned astonishment. “How did you do that?”

They’d forgotten CPR in the last 97 years? “You’ve tried bringing Reapers back before?” she asked. “And they died like this?” Lincoln was panting and wheezing now, the fight and rage at least temporarily drained from him.

Nyko nodded and Clarke paused, thinking.

“What is it?” Bellamy asked.

“I know how to stop the attack,” she said, looking at Bellamy. “Monroe, you stay here. I need to go back to camp.”

“Monroe should go with you,” Bellamy said. “If the Grounders are coming and he’s already here, I don’t want you out there alone.”

“Bellamy,” Clarke said. “Monroe should stay with you here. I have to go get my mom. Nyko, my mom and I can show you what I did later. We call them chest compressions.”

“He went into cardiac arrest?” Monroe asked. “I can do CPR if he does again.”

“Just the chest compressions,” Clarke said. “Stay away from his teeth.”

Monroe made a face but moved forward. Clarke climbed off Lincoln and moved down the ladder to the second floor. Before she moved over to the hatch to the first floor Bellamy climbed down the first couple of rungs before sliding down the rest.

She raised her brows at him when he turned around. “What’s your plan?” he asked, reaching for her.

“We can save the Reapers, bring them back. They don’t know how to do CPR and if they go into cardiac arrest as part of withdrawal…” Clarke trailed off. “I’ve got to try.”

Bellamy huffed out a breath and nodded. “I don’t like this,” he said.

“I know,” Clarke said, pressing forward to kiss him. “I’ll send my mom. I need to talk to the Commander.”

“Please take Monroe with you – I can do CPR if it comes down to it,” he said. “Don’t talk to the Commander by yourself. Don’t take Finn or Murphy.”

“I think I have to,” Clarke said. But his expression was so openly pleading with her to not go alone that she sighed. “I – okay. Yeah. I’ll try. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Bellamy said. He looked up at the open hatch. “Monroe!” he called. “You’re going back with Clarke! And to the Grounder leader.”

“You just—” Monroe started before she muttered under her breath. She climbed down the ladder and said, “Alright, let’s go.”

The guards at camp let them in and she could see everyone packing up. Then she saw her mom and called her over. Abby hurried towards her and Monroe, worry on her face. “Where have you been? How do you keep getting out? We’re leaving.”

“I know how to stop the attack,” Clarke said.

“What are you talking about?” Jaha as dismissively as he walked over, followed by Finn.

“We haven’t been able to negotiate with the Grounders because we haven’t had anything to offer them. The biggest threat they face is from the Reapers. I think we may be able to eliminate that threat for them once and for all.”

Abby glanced at Jaha briefly. “How?”

“Abby,” Jaha said sharply. The crowd began murmuring louder. “You can’t seriously—”

“Over there!” someone shouted, and Clarke turned.

On the hill surrounding one side of the fence, torchlight gleamed and grew.

“They’re here,” Jaha said, resigned.

“Inside,” Abby said and headed back towards the Ark.

“Abby, we have to leave,” Jaha said as Clarke, Monroe, and Finn followed her mother into the Ark. Jaha followed a moment later.

“Is Kane dead?” Clarke asked.

“Yes,” Jaha said. “The Commander wanted us to fight to the death, but our actions persuaded her otherwise. She would only permit one of us to leave.”

“Did you see his body?” Clarke asked.

“What?”

“If you didn’t see someone actively murder him, then there’s no guarantee he’s dead,” Clarke said. “Don’t believe it without a body to prove it. We’ve thought Murphy was dead multiple times now and he clearly isn’t.”

“Octavia thought Lincoln was dead a couple times too,” Monroe said. “No body, no guarantee.”

“He’s not dead now,” Clarke said. “Mount Weather turned him into a Reaper with some sort of drug. He’s going to through withdrawal in the dropship. He went into cardiac arrest and apparently the Grounders don’t know how to do CPR anymore.”

Abby led them into the makeshift Council room. “Abby, we need to leave,” Jaha said, shooting Clarke a wary look.

“They’re not attacking yet,” Clarke said impatiently. “That means we still have time.”

“We have two hours until dawn,” Abby said.

“Let me talk to the Commander,” Clarke said. “She was Anya’s second at one point. Maybe she’ll listen.”

“That is not what you told Bellamy,” Monroe muttered.

Jaha sighed heavily. “We don’t even know if the Commander is here.”

“Why wouldn’t she be here?” Finn asked. “If they’re here to kill us, then she would be here to lead them.”

“Abby, we’re wasting time,” Jaha said softly. “Give me the authority now.”

Clarke glared at him as her mother said, “Hold on.” Jaha could not get the Chancellor pin back right now. “Clarke, you said that Lincoln is going through withdrawal? We don’t even know what he’s withdrawing from. The detox alone could kill him.”

“That’s where you come in,” Clarke said as Jaha scoffed.

“And if I can’t save him?”

“That’s not an option.” Not for Octavia and not for what was going on outside. Abby kept her gaze on Clarke.

“We are risking everything on a bluff?” Jaha asked. Clarke glared at him again. “Abby, we have an out. We have a way to save the lives of our people.”

“Not all of them,” Finn pointed out.

“We will come back to save the kids inside Mount Weather,” Jaha said, angrily pushing to his feet. Clarke wished she’d positioned herself so she could see Miller’s dad in the doorway behind her.

Clarke realized that if Wells had lived and was in Mount Weather with the others, they’d be having a different conversation right now. But the same had been true for her mother until she pressed the issue. If Wells had lived a whole lot of things would be different. He was a much better diplomat than anyone else in the 100.

“We all know that’s not gonna happen,” Finn said.

“Abby,” Jaha said, ignoring Finn. “This has gone on long enough.” He moved around the table to loom into Abby’s space. “If you do not give the order to begin the exodus, you are killing us all.”

Abby didn’t look at Jaha, instead alternating between the table and Clarke as she thought. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, and Clarke’s heart sank. Abby looked up at Jaha. “I can’t give that order.”

Jaha looked disappointed and whispered something in Abby’s ear. He didn’t like her response if the change in his expression was anything to go by.

“No. Are you through yet?” Abby asked.

Jaha’s lip twitched in a brief curl of a sneer before he looked at Clarke and Finn. He stepped away from Abby. “Sergeant Miller. Major Byrne,” he said. “I am relieving Dr. Griffin of her command.”

God. Why couldn’t he have died on the Ark?

Clarke looked at the two guards. Byrne blinked slowly and didn’t look happy as Jaha turned back to them. “Place these four into custody, but make sure that they are ready to leave with the rest of us within the hour.”

Clarke felt like she should be alarmed, but Bellamy and Octavia were waiting and between Raven, Wick, Monroe, Sterling, and Miller’s dad’s very clear desire to get his son back, she wasn’t actually worried. Hell, Murphy might even help. Who knew with him.

Major Byrne and Sergeant Miller didn’t move.

“Right now, Major!” Jaha shouted suddenly and Clarke jerked. “Or the blood of everyone in this camp will be on your hands too!”

“Major Byrne. Sergeant Miller,” her mother said calmly. “Put Chancellor Jaha in the stockade.”

_Holy shit, mom._

Jaha stared Byrne down. Sergeant Miller looked like he was waiting on her.

“Yes ma’am,” Byrne finally said.

Jaha flinched and jerked away when the two guards took his arms. God Clarke wished she could see the look on his face. He turned to look back at Abby, furious. “Everything we did to survive,” he said and paused. “You’re just throwing it all away. Why?”

“Because I have faith too,” Abby said. “In my daughter.”

Jaha walked out, followed by the two guards.

“Thank you,” Clarke said.

Abby turned to her. “I’ll send a guard detail with you.”

“No, they’ll see it as a threat. I have to do this on my own,” Clarke said and started to say something else, but Monroe interrupted.

“I’m going with you. Bellamy said to go with you so I’m going with you.”

“Monroe,” Clarke said. “That’s not – I need to do this alone.”

“She should go with you,” Finn said. “I can take your mom to the Dropship.”

“Grounders have seconds,” Monroe said. “You and Bellamy co lead and Miller’d be your second, or at least Bellamy’s. I’m your bodyguard or whatever. I’m going with you. Even if I have to follow you once you leave.”

Clarke frowned. “Fine. You’re better than Bellamy in this case anyways. He’d probably piss her off. Finn, Nyko’s there.”

“Who’s Nyko?” Finn asked.

“One of the Grounders you tried to kill,” Clarke said. “And I think you maybe tried to kill his son too. Sterling can take mom. You and Murphy should stay away from the Grounders as much as possible right now.”

“Okay,” Finn said, shoulders slumping. “I’ll go get Sterling.”

“If you’re wrong,” Abby said, voice belaying her fear, “All of us are gonna die.”

“I know,” Clarke said. She turned to Monroe. “No weapons.” Monroe scowled.

Walking into the mass of Grounders on the hill was terrifying but having Monroe at her back did help. She also knew she had to do it to save the survivors from the Ark and her own people in the mountain After she announced herself and Monroe as her second, they were escorted up to a tent at the top of the hill. When she thought about it, she didn’t really have a second. She and Bellamy were a team and equals and Miller was basically Bellamy’s second. She wouldn’t consider him _her_ second but she trusted him and knew he was taking care of everyone in the mountain. A man stood in front of it and stepped forward as they approached. He appraised both her and Monroe dismissively.

“If you so much as look at her the wrong way, I will slit your throat,” he said. He stepped back and held the door covering open for her. She swallowed and stepped through, Monroe close at her heels.

In the center of the back wall of the tent there was a raised platform of wood. The back of the platform was draped with a deep red cloth. A throne sat upon it and a woman – younger than Clarke had anticipated – sat upon it casually. She was clad in black and had black paint smeared across her eyes all the way to her hairline. She was playing with a knife far too casually to be anything but a threat.

“You’re the one,” the Commander said, “who burned 300 of my warriors alive.” She looked up from the knife.

“You’re the one who sent them there to kill us,” Clarke said.

The Commander moved the knife and placed the tip in the arm of her throne. She began to spin it idly. “Do you have an answer for me, Clarke of the Sky People?”

God, she wished Wells was here. He would’ve been good at this. Bellamy would’ve been fucking useless even if he would have made her feel better. Monroe stood quietly just off her left shoulder.

“I’ve come to make you an offer.”

“This is not a negotiation,” the Commander said.

The woman at her side said something in their language. She was pretty sure it was a threat. The Commander held up a hand.

“I can help you beat the Mountain Men,” Clarke said.

“Go on,” the Commander said slowly.

“Hundreds of your people are trapped inside Mount Weather kept in cages. Their blood is being used as medicine.”

“How do you know this?” the Commander asked sharply.

“Because I saw them. My people are prisoners there too. I was one of them.”

“Lies,” the other woman spat. “No one escapes the mountain.”

“I did. With Anya. We fought our way out together.” The Commander’s head titled as Clarke explained.

“Another lie. Anya died in a fire. You killed her,” the other woman said.

Clarke reached into her pocket and everyone but the Commander readied weapons. She paused and pulled the braided hair out slowly. The Commander’s face didn’t soften, but it did change. “She told me you were her second. I’m sure she’d want you to have this.” Honestly, she didn’t, but she stepped forward cautiously, holding the braid out.

The Commander took it and looked down at it as Clarke backed up slowly.

“We don’t know it’s hers,” the other woman said.

The Commander said something that sounded distinctly like, “Shut up, Indra,” to her. “Anya was my mentor before I was called to lead my people,” she said in English. “Did she die well?”

Shit. “Yes. By my side, trying to get a message to you.” It wasn’t exactly a life. It hadn’t been a coward’s death anyways.

“What message?” the Commander asked.

“The only way to save both our people is to join together.”

“Those who are about to die will say anything,” the other woman said.

“I’m still waiting for an offer, Clarke,” the Commander said.

“The Mountain Men are turning your people into Reapers. I can turn them back.”

“Impossible,” the other woman spat. She said something in their language, but the Commander was staring at Clarke carefully.

“I’ve done it with Lincoln.”

“That traitor is the reason,” the other woman said, stepping forward, “my village burned.”

_What?_ What did Lincoln have to do with Finn setting the village on fire? Was it because he didn’t help slaughter them? Was it because he rescued them from Anya and Tristan? That didn’t make sense to Clarke.

“Indra,” Lexa said standing.

Indra stepped away and to the opposite side of the tent.

The Commander and the man stepped forward. “You say you can turn Reapers back into men?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then prove it. Show me Lincoln.”

God, she hoped her mom had done it. And that Finn had listened and gotten Sterling to take her to the Dropship instead of going himself.

The Commander and their escort looked wary when they reached the dropship. She didn’t blame them for their reaction. The charred remains of the dead were still there. She felt a sense of foreboding as she led them into the dropship, closely followed by Monroe.

As soon as the hatch opened, she knew things were bad. Octavia was sobbing. She didn’t have to see anything to know what had happened, just hearing that was enough. When she met her mom’s gaze, she looked terrified. Bellamy looked to her from where he was next to his sister, gently reaching for his rifle. Monroe immediately moved to Octavia’s side as the others climbed up behind them. Sterling gripped his rifle tightly from the other side of Lincoln.

Everyone was on edge and tense as the Grounders spread out.

“Kill them all,” Indra said, and everyone drew weapons – even Monroe who had definitely been stripped of them when they reached the Grounder encampment.

Her mother picked up the shock baton of all things, but Indra had a sword pointed at Abby’s neck. Bellamy moved his rifle’s aim from the Commander to Indra in an instant.

This wouldn’t end well.

“Please, you don’t have to do this,” Clarke said, voice shaking and tears burning at her eyes.

“You lied,” the Commander said. “And you’re out of time.”

Abby lunged and pressed the tip of the shock baton to Lincoln’s chest. He arched and Clarke realized why Abby had picked it up. An AED.

“Hit him again,” Clarke said, and Abby did.

Lincoln gasped back to life and opened his eyes. Octavia dropped back down to his side. “Lincoln,” she whispered as the Commander and her allies looked on in astonishment.

He looked up at her and smiled softly. “Octavia,” he whispered. Her whole body sagged towards him in relief. Clarke felt like doing the same.

Clarke looked at the Commander, who sheathed her blade. Bellamy lowered the gun and glanced back her. She nodded and moved opposite Octavia to start releasing Lincoln from his bindings. Monroe reluctantly sheathed her blade as Octavia held Lincoln’s face in her hands. Abby stood awkwardly, still holding the shock baton. Bellamy dropped down next to his sister, scooting her out of the way. As soon as Lincoln’s arm was free, Octavia reached down to trace over his mark. He lifted his hand to cup her cheek.

The Commander noticed the action. “You are sonraunyon?” she asked.

“What does that mean?” Bellamy asked.

“Soulmate,” Lincoln whispered.

Clarke looked up at Bellamy and met his gaze. “They are,” she said.

“I would like to take him with us for observation,” Abby said. “His brain was without oxygen.” Octavia looked up, alarm crossing her face. “We just need to check.”

“We must return to the others,” the Commander said. “Clarke of the Sky People, you shall return with us.”

“Monroe’s going back with you,” Bellamy said.

“Mom, he’s going to need the seaweed,” Clarke said, standing. “You should take our medical supplies with you. I’ll make sure everything’s there.”

She climbed down and ignored Indra’s eyes on her. She was searching through the bedding piled up on the second floor when someone followed her down.

“That’s not medical supplies,” Bellamy said.

“No, but – aha!” She pulled out the fur and held it out. “You are taking this back with you before anyone else can call dibs.”

Bellamy took the panther fur. “I thought this wasn’t a priority.”

“That’s what _you_ thought, I never said that’s what _I_ thought,” Clarke said, moving to the ladder down to the first floor. She scampered down and looked up to see Bellamy roll his eyes at her.

“Catch,” he said as he dropped the pelt directly on her face. She pulled it off and went to the tub that held their medical supplies.

Indra followed Bellamy down.

“The drug probably isn’t out of Lincoln’s system yet,” Clarke said. “Detox usually takes longer than a few hours and we don’t know when he got his last dose. You should stay with Octavia. She almost lost her soulmate today.”

Bellamy gave her a pointed look as he moved to her side. “We still got the stretcher?”

“No, lost that in the run back. Probably didn’t help Raven to do that,” Clarke said, tucking anything her mom might need into the tub. “You should take as much as you can, but I don’t know how well Lincoln will be able to walk.” She frowned. “You may actually need Monroe.”

“No,” Bellamy said. “Did you blow the tower?”

“Raven figured out how to listen in on Mount Weather’s comms,” Clarke said.

“You can listen inside the mountain?” Indra asked.

Clarke turned. “Not all the time, just when they’re communicating with their people outside of it. And the fog isn’t random. It’s a weapon.”

“It’s a weapon?” Bellamy asked.

“Chemical warfare,” Clarke shrugged.

“You’re shrugging over chemical warfare?” Bellamy asked incredulously.

“They have biological warfare,” Clarke said, gesturing at Indra.

“I remember. You almost died,” Bellamy said.

It wasn’t like she could say everything she wanted with Indra there. Chemical warfare was a terrifying concept. She was terrified. She wanted him to come with her, but Octavia needed him.

The sound of boots on the ladder rang out and Bellamy’s jaw tensed. As the Commander, Indra, and the male Grounder reached the first floor and began speaking to one another in their own language, Bellamy said, “You’re taking Monroe.” Monroe slid down the ladder and crossed her arms.

“Clarke of the Sky People,” the Commander said. “It is time to return.”

“I’ll see you at the Ark,” she told Bellamy. “And take the supplies back with you.”

She turned and headed for the door after the Grounders, Monroe at her heels. They were almost to where the gate to camp once stood when he called her name.

She turned. Bellamy stood in the doorway. “If you aren’t back at the Ark by midday, I will come get you.” His gaze was fierce and moved from her to someone over her shoulder.

“I’ll see you at the Ark,” she said.

Back at the Commander’s tent, she kept Indra and the male Grounder from entering. The fact that Monroe was allowed entry seemed to deeply irritate the other two. The Commander moved to the opposite side of a map of the crashed Ark. Monroe was apparently taking bodyguard duty seriously as she stood half a step behind Clarke.

“Lincoln’s recovery was impressive,” the Commander said with a very small smile. “No one’s every survived such a fate before.” She looked up at Clarke.

“It’s not complicated really,” Clarke said. “We just have to keep them alive long enough for the drug to leave their system.” And maybe they could do more if they found the actual chemical compound in Mount Weather. “I know we can do the same for others.”

The Commander nodded. “You may have your truce.”

Clarke smiled, relieved. “Thank you.”

“I need just one thing in return,” the Commander said. Monroe stiffened next to Clarke. “You must pay for the actions taken in TonDC.” Clarke’s smile fell. “He was going to slaughter the innocent.” Clarke felt rooted in place and unable to speak. “And he burned their homes. But,” the Commander said, holding eye contact, “Nyko spoke of the actions of the other Sky People. Of how the one our people tortured in turn saved my people.”

Clarke felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“I have taken all of this into consideration. When the fight with the mountain is done your people will rebuild the village and repair the damage caused.”

“Yes,” Clarke said.

“You speak for all your people in this?” the Commander asked, her tone even but clearly leading. “You are their commander? I was told it was the one called Jaha.”

“He was,” Clarke said. “He passed it to Kane. He went to try and broker peace and Jaha returned instead. But he doesn’t speak for us. And he does not speak for my people in the mountain.”

“Then who does?” the Commander asked.

“Clarke and Bellamy speak for us,” Monroe said. “They’re _our_ leaders.”

“My mother is the Chancellor unless Kane returns,” Clarke said. She looked at Monroe. “And Bellamy and I lead those in the mountain.”

“Bellamy is Lincoln’s sonraunyon’s brother,” the Commander said. “Your Chancellor does not speak for them? Your mother or the others?”

“No,” Monroe said.

“Bellamy and I – they’re _our_ people. They’re our friends and we will speak for them while they aren’t here,” Clarke said.

“Is he your second?” the Commander asked, eyeing Monroe.

“We lead together. As equals.”

“Very well, Clarke of the Sky People. Tell your people of our truce and its terms. We will speak again.”

She didn’t rush through the camp and she didn’t fling herself into Bellamy’s or her mother’s arms when she reached the gates of Camp Jaha no matter how much she wanted to. Monroe kept close the entire way back. Once they were inside the Ark and out of sight of those on the hill, Clarke stopped and hugged her mother hard.

“Clarke?” her mother asked hesitantly. “Are we okay?”

“Thank you, thank you,” Clarke said.

“Do we have a truce?” Abby asked.

Clarke nodded against her mother’s shoulder. She stepped back and blindly reached for Bellamy, who stepped into her side. “She had an additional term to the truce.”

“Which is?” Abby asked warily.

“She said we have to pay for the actions at the village,” Clarke said. “We have to help them rebuild after everyone is free.”

Abby looked relieved. “I don’t know if we’ll have the resources or the technical knowledge, but we will.”

“They’ll kill us all if we don’t,” Clarke said.

“I know,” Abby said. “Now, Jackson’s monitoring Lincoln. We’ll know more about oxygen deprivation soon. Octavia’s with him now.”

“Monroe,” Clarke said. “Can you go update the others?”

“Got it,” Monroe said. “By the way, Bellamy, you should watch out for the Commander.”

“What? Why?” Bellamy asked, immediately on alert.

“She was looking at Clarke the way you did the first couple days on Earth,” Monroe said.

“No she wasn’t,” Clarke said.

“You didn’t notice Bellamy watching you,” Monroe said. “The rest of us did. I’ll go find Sterling, Raven, and Finn.”

“You two look exhausted,” Abby said once Monroe had headed off. “Go get some sleep.”

Clarke nodded. She hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and Bellamy had to be pushing close to 50 hours without sleep. “You got the fur?” she asked him.

“Sterling ran it to our room once we got Lincoln settled,” Bellamy said. He took her hand and led her away from her mother in the direction of their room. “You okay?” he asked.

“Not really,” she sighed. “We’ll need to meet with the others to fully talk it out later. I’m glad Monroe was there. The Commander let her keep the knife on the way back.”

“Hey,” a voice called when they reached an intersection in the hallway. She looked up to see Murphy. “The Grounders going to attack of what?”

“No,” Clarke said and felt her breath hitch in her chest. “They’re not. Thank you.” And then she did something she never thought she’d do. She hugged Murphy.

“Uh,” he said. “What’s happening?”

“You shot Finn,” she said and stepped back.

“Yes,” Murphy said slowly. “I thought everyone was mad about it. He and Raven sure are.”

“You kept him from killing those people.”

Murphy looked uncomfortable. “Well, the kids might grow up to be murders and torturers, but they’re kids.”

“The Commander said that we need to pay for what happened there,” Clarke said. “I thought she was going to make us hand over Finn, but you shot him.”

“You’re welcome, I guess,” Murphy said, but he looked confused.

“Thank you,” Clarke said again and yawned.

“Okay, time to go to sleep,” Bellamy said. “Murphy. We’ll see you later.” He led Clarke down the hallway and to their room, an arm wrapped around her shoulders.

“You’ve been awake longer than I have,” she mumbled as he ushered her in and closed the door.

“Thanks to adrenaline,” he said. “I haven’t quite hit the crash yet, unlike you.” She shrugged out of her jacket and just dropped it on the floor before collapsing on the bed to tackle her boots. Bellamy dropped down next to her.

“I really thought we were fucked for a minute there,” she said, dropping her head to her knees. “Well, a minute a couple of times.” She felt tears prickle at the back of her closed eyelids. “And then I thought she was going to make us turn Finn over to get tortured.”

“Hey, she didn’t and we’re okay,” Bellamy said, tugging her close into his side. “What exactly did Murphy have to do with it?”

“I guess Nyko recognized him as the guy they’d tortured. He spoke with the Commander about it and how he shot Finn to keep Finn from doing anything terrible.”

“Jesus,” Bellamy said. “Thank you, Murphy, indeed. Come on.” He tugged off first hers and then his own boots. “We’ve got our panther fur and everything. We’ll check in on the others later.”

She let him draw her down on their bed and wrap himself around her, holding her face to face and wedging a leg between hers. He turned into an octopus when he was tired or sleeping and she had absolutely no problems with it. “I told her we were co leaders,” she mumbled. “Monroe also kept telling her that we spoke for the delinquents, not my mom. I’m glad Monroe went, but I didn’t want to be there without you.”

“I’ll be there every time from now on,” Bellamy said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit where Clarke goes to save Lincoln doesn't make sense when you rewatch it because presumably she and Finn spent all night in the bunker, then they go back to Camp Jaha, and then she goes to Lincoln. But it's moonlight by the time anything actually happens with him. 
> 
> The first time I wrote the scene with Nyko, I did use Finn but it felt weird because Nyko's son's alive in this AU. And I wanna use other members of the 100 more so I did. Plus there's got to be somebody in the conspirator group that would think, "Oh, hey. Finn should stay inside the walls as much as possible."
> 
> Sonraunyon is a combination of "sonraun" (life) and I think "keryon" (soul) but I'm pretty sure I came up with this back in August and I can't find my notes. I remember I tried to combine a bunch of different word pairs and this is the one I liked best. 
> 
> This is where the timeline starts to get screwy because they're obviously not going to hide and then Finn isn't going to turn himself in and then they don't go to TonDC. And just so everybody's aware timing wise of what's going on in the mountain since I don't cover that, conspiracy gang v2 has broken into Dante's office and Harper's been taken. The timing of what's going on inside vs. outside the mountain also makes no sense.


	21. Chapter 21

When she woke up, she was starving, and Bellamy was still passed out. While she’d fallen asleep facing Bellamy, she woke up on her back with Bellamy splayed out on top of her. His forehead pressed into her chin and her left arm was decidedly numb from how he was curled into and over her. She checked her watch – thankfully not the arm he was sleeping on – and figured she’d gotten around 8 hours of sleep, which would probably mess up her sleep cycle, but it was already pretty messed up with everything that had been going on.

She pressed a kiss to Bellamy’s forehead and tried to pull her arm free. He woke up before she finished, murmuring, “Clarke?”

“Give me my arm back and go back to sleep. I’m going to find food,” she said.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and rolled off her. “I’m up. We need to find the others anyways.”

She looked at him, hissing as her arm erupted in pins and needles. “You don’t look like you’re awake.” His eyes were hazy with sleep still and slipping closed even as he pushed himself up. “I want to check on Lincoln too. I’ll be back soon.”

“Someone would have found us if something went wrong,” he pointed out. “What time is it?”

“Seven. We got around eight hours of sleep,” Clarke said.

“Let’s see if anyone’s next door,” Bellamy said.

When they knocked on the door of the other room, Monroe pulled it open just enough to step through and closed it behind her. “Morning,” she said. “We gonna have that meeting with the others now?”

“What?” Clarke asked, looking at her watch. “It’s seven.”

“Yeah, AM,” Monroe said. “You slept through the entire afternoon and night. Octavia spent the night in Medical with Lincoln. You want to meet her there or in Raven’s workshop? I still don’t know where she’s sleeping.”

“We slept through the night?” Bellamy asked. “I guess that explains why I’m so hungry.”

“Uh, get anyone to Raven’s for a makeshift breakfast meeting, I guess?” Clarke said. “We’ll go talk to Octavia and meet you there.”

“Gotcha,” Monroe said. “Meet you at Raven’s with food.” As Clarke and Bellamy began walking down the hall, they heard Monroe open the door and say, “Hey Sterling, mom and dad called for breakfast at Raven’s.”

‘Mom and dad?’ Clarke mouthed at Bellamy. He just shrugged. “I mean, they were calling us that at the dropship.”

“I can’t believe we’re _still_ being called that though,” Clarke said, reaching for his hand. They walked hand in hand to the Medical tent outside, only to find out it had moved into the wreck of the Ark while they were sleeping. They backtracked and after a few moments found the new Medical.

“Wow,” Bellamy murmured. “Looks better. Where’s Lincoln?”

The space did look better than the tent outside had and there was more space for the beds and storage shelves for whatever supplies they had. Clarke could see the tote from the dropship on one of the shelves. “I don’t know,” she said, glancing around. “Maybe she’s keeping him separate?”

“I guess,” Bellamy said. “You like this Jackson guy, right?”

“Yeah,” Clarke said warily. “He’s my mom’s apprentice. He’s the best after her and he’s really nice too. Why?”

“Well, your mom doesn’t like me,” Bellamy said. “And presumably I’m going to need a doctor at some point.”

“That’s what you have me for,” Clarke said. “Unless you get stabbed. I don’t think I could do that again.”

“Did you even want to be a doctor?” Bellamy asked.

Clarke shrugged. “Not really. But I wasn’t good at anything else.” She wouldn’t say she was good at doctoring though she did seem to have an aptitude for it. Most of what she’d done was minor stuff before she’d been arrested. Finn was her first actual surgery.

“Clarke?” Jackson called and she turned towards his direction. “Are you here for Lincoln and Octavia?”

“Yeah. We kind of slept a lot longer than we planned,” she said. “Where is he? _How_ is he?”

“We’re keeping him separate for now,” Jackson said. Her gaze narrowed at his cautious tone. “He’s fine. There’s no sign that he suffered any ill effects from the lack of oxygen. He is still experiencing some symptoms of withdrawal even if he isn’t detoxing anymore. The symptoms he’s experiencing are expected, so we’re keeping an eye on them, but we’re not concerned. We took some blood to try and figure out what was in his system, but our tests have come back as inconclusive. There’s not enough of the drug left in his system for us to trace.”

“What about his leg?” Bellamy asked. “Where he was shot.”

“You did a good job getting the bullet out,” Jackson told Clarke. “There’s no sign of infection so far, which is good. He is still suffering from the blood loss. We haven’t given him a transfusion yet because we don’t have the supply right now.” That made sense. Blood bags wouldn’t have survived reentry.

“Can we see him?” Bellamy asked. “Octavia’s with him?”

“She’s here. And you can see him,” Jackson said. He hesitated. “He’s been restrained.”

“What? Why?” Bellamy asked.

“Twenty-four hours ago he was under the effects of an unknown drug. He’s – he lunged for Abby. She’s fine and he came back to himself in a few minutes. He’s still going through withdrawal. And he suggested it. Abby isn’t thrilled with it herself.” He sighed. “Your sister is very unhappy about it. And he refuses to talk about what happened if she’s around. I’ll take you to them.”

As Jackson led them off to the side, Clarke couldn’t help but wonder what exactly had happened in the mountain if it was bad enough that Lincoln didn’t want Octavia to know.

Lincoln was propped up on the bed, thickly padded cuffs attached to the bed rails. Octavia was seated next to his bed and looked up when they walked over. “Hey. Nobody’ll tell me what’s going on beyond we’re not leaving and not being attacked. I assume the deal with the Commander went through.”

“Yeah,” Clarke said. “We made a deal.”

“You get any sleep?” Bellamy asked Octavia, moving to her side.

“A little,” Octavia said. “You?”

“Our nap turned into sleeping through the afternoon and night,” Bellamy said.

“What deal did you make with the Heda?” Lincoln asked, staring at Clarke.

“I told her we could save the Reapers,” she said. “She seemed interested. And once we take out the mountain, they’d be the only threat.”

“Azgeda would still be a threat,” Lincoln said. Clarke had no idea what that meant, but filed it away for later. “And you can’t save them.”

“We saved you,” Octavia said. Lincoln looked away to his cuffed hands.

“She added another stipulation,” Clarke said. “Reparations for what Finn did to the village, to TonDC,” Clarke said. Octavia looked to her, alarmed. “I promised we’d help rebuild after the mountain’s dealt with.”

Lincoln frowned. “The Heda just wants you to rebuild? No blood sacrifice?”

“I – no,” Clarke said. “I was worried about it, but no.”

“Should we be concerned about that?” Bellamy asked.

“Trikru may not like it, but Octavia’s said that no one died,” Lincoln said. “The Heda must truly believe she needs the Sky People to defeat the mountain.”

Clarke frowned. “Can we trust that she’ll honor her end of the truce?”

“She’ll do what’s best for the coalition, for her people.”

Good. What was best for the Grounders was to work together to get everyone out. “O, we’re going to grab breakfast and tell the others what’s going on. You want to come?” Bellamy asked.

“I’m staying here,” Octavia said. “You just told me everything.”

“You should go,” Lincoln said softly.

“I’m staying here,” Octavia repeated firmly. She looked to her brother. “Go tell the others.”

“Okay,” Bellamy said. He started to walk out and Clarke wanted to stay and talk to Lincoln and Octavia, but he snagged her hand and pulled her out after him.

“Hey,” she said when they were away from Lincoln’s sectioned off space. “Something’s wrong.”

“I know,” Bellamy said. “Lincoln doesn’t want her there. But she’s stubborn. Dragging her off with us won’t work.”

“You’re both stubborn,” Clarke said. “It’s a Blake family trait.”

“I’m not the only stubborn one here,” Bellamy said with a chuckle, squeezing her hand.

“Yeah, it’s going to be great when we have enough time to actually have a fight without looming death forcing a resolution,” she said sarcastically.

It wasn’t something she’d thought about, but now that the thought was in her head…Maybe they only worked because of looming death. What would they be like when things were calm? She loved him and she knew he loved her, but so far their relationship had been trial by fire. What was going to happen later?

“Clarke?” Bellamy asked, a puzzled frown on his face. “You ready to meet with the others?”

“Yeah,” she said and smiled at him, though it felt forced. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Before they could, though, Sinclair burst in and scanned the room quickly. “Where’s the Chancellor?”

“Why? What’s happened? She’s not here,” Clarke said, dread pooling in her stomach. “Jackson! Where’s my mom?”

“She headed to the Council room right before you got here,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s riders at the gate,” Sinclair said and took off.

Clarke and Bellamy exchanged a glance and followed after. Instead of heading to the Council room they headed straight for the gates. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Bellamy said.

“But what if it’s not? What if they want Finn after all? Fuck,” she said, realizing. “He doesn’t even know what the Commander said. We shouldn’t have slept. We should’ve just talked it through with the others.”

“We clearly needed the sleep, Clarke. Maybe they’re just here to set up a meeting.”

“I really don’t think so,” she said when she saw the two riders. They were clearly warriors.

“Where’s the Chancellor?” Miller’s dad asked as they approached. His gaze drifted past them. “There she is.”

Abby caught up with them a moment later. “What’s going on?” she asked. She looked to the riders. “Open the gates.”

The gates opened and the horses stepped closer slightly. “In honor of our truce,” one of the riders said before they both wheeled off.

What did that mean?

There was a shout from the tree line and a figure emerged. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” the man called out.

“Marcus?” Abby said in shock as he walked closer.

“Great,” Bellamy muttered as they realized that Chancellor #3 – or was he #2 and her mom was #3? – had returned.

“Chancellor,” he greeted Abby.

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t see you again,” Abby said, and Clarke frowned at her mother’s tone of voice.

“I had those fears myself,” Kane said softly. Clarke exchanged a glance with Bellamy behind her mother’s back. “It’s good to see this place again.”

“Told you not to count anyone out until you see a body,” Clarke said.

“Clarke, it’s good to see you’re okay,” Kane said. “Mr. Blake was quite concerned.”

“Well, he is my soulmate,” Clarke said dryly.

“A lot’s changed since you left,” Abby said. “Let’s go inside to talk.” She turned to Clarke and Bellamy. “I’ll talk to you two later.”

“Mom—”

“It’s alright,” Abby said.

“I told the Commander you were the Chancellor unless he came back,” Clarke said. “And then she sent him back.”

“She also told her that we speak for our people in the mountain,” Bellamy said.

“They’re our people too,” Kane said.

“Jaha didn’t see it that way. He wanted to leave them behind to be tortured,” Clarke said. “And more than a few of us are of the opinion that you sent us down here to die.”

“You know that’s not true,” Abby said. “And we’re going to get the kids out.”

She and Kane walked off. Clarke sighed, heavily relieved that it didn’t seem like Finn’s life was at stake. She desperately wanted to be in on that conversation, but she had to trust that her mother would tell her later. Trusting her mom was tough though. And what was that with Kane?

“We should talk to the others now,” Bellamy said.

As if to agree, her stomach let out a loud rumble. “Yeah, okay. I guess we should eat.”

Finn was pacing in the workshop when they got there. The others were all gathered there as well and Clarke was surprised to see Murphy there too. “There you are!” Finn said in exasperation. “Where have you been?”

“Calm down, Collins,” Wick said from the back of the room. “I’m sure they have a good reason.”

“We saw Lincoln and there were riders at the gate,” Clarke said as Monroe handed her and Bellamy ration packets.

“Jesus,” Murphy said. “What the hell did they want?”

“To return Kane,” Bellamy said.

“So now we have three Chancellors on our hands?” Sterling asked.

“Monroe told us what happened yesterday with the Grounder commander since you were late,” Raven said.

“I’m surprised they even agreed to a truce in the first place,” Finn said.

“The Commander listened because she thinks Clarke’s hot,” Monroe said. Everyone turned to look at her. “What?” she said, shrugging. “She was making the Bellamy pining face a couple of times.”

“She was not,” Clarke said. “She listened because she knows the value of a truce.”

“She thinks Clarke’s hot?” Bellamy asked.

“I told you that _yesterday_ ,” Monroe said in exasperation.

“Clarke is hot,” Raven said. “You’re hot. Everyone’s hot. Can we move on? What’d Lincoln say about it?” Raven asked.

“He was surprised she was only asking us to rebuild TonDC,” Clarke said. “And that she’ll hold up her end of the truce.”

“He said she’ll do what’s best for the Grounders,” Bellamy said. “We also have to save all the Reapers and make them not addicted to whatever the mountain’s giving them.”

“And what happens if we – or you and your mom – can’t?” Wick asked.

“Well, they’re probably going to kill all of us,” Murphy said. “In increasingly violent ways.”

“Great,” Wick said, drawing the vowels out. “That tracks for what I’ve heard about Earth so far.”

“We need to save the Reapers and rebuild TonDC and they won’t kill us,” Sterling said.

“Lincoln says we can’t save them,” Bellamy said.

“So we’re all going to die,” Murphy said, shrugging.

“No we’re not,” Clarke said. “We can save some of them. I don’t think we can save them all, but we can save some of them. We’ll get our people out of the mountain and then we’ll figure out how to rebuild a village.”

Raven glanced at Wick. “You know anything about construction?” He just stared at her flatly and she sighed. “Why’d I even ask? You’re useless.”

“What are we going to do with the other people in the mountain?” Finn asked. Clarke looked at him in confusion. “The Grounders won’t want to let them live. Not after what they’ve done for decades. How long have they been kidnapping people and turning them into Reapers? How long have they been harvesting blood from them?”

“I – I don’t know,” Clarke said. Wallace had said he was a child when they found out about the Grounders, but it would’ve taken time to figure out that you could filter radiation through their blood and to figure out a drug or drug cocktail to turn people into Reapers. It wouldn’t have been an immediate thing.

“We’ll ask Lincoln,” Bellamy said. “It’s possible not everyone in there is culpable. We don’t know how much of the population knows what their ‘treatment’ actually is. And there has to be kids in there too.”

“What did Kane have to say?” Monroe asked.

“Don’t know. He and my mom went off,” Clarke said. What _were_ they going to do about the other people in the mountain? Maya was Jasper’s soulmate. But she had to know what was going on. She worked in the Infirmary.

“Clarke?” Bellamy asked, nudging her arm. She looked at him, realizing she’d missed something. “You think Kane will take back the Chancellorship from your mom? You know him better than anyone else here.”

“Not that much more,” she said. “And I’ve never liked him. I don’t know if she’ll give it back to Kane. She already had Jaha detained when he tried to take it back from her. And they were best friends, so I don’t know.”

“Nobody likes Kane,” Raven said.

“He saved my life when Sydney fucked up the Ark,” Wick said. “So he’s not all bad. I think the culling really messed him up.”

“Good,” Monroe said. “They were going to kill people they didn’t think were valuable.”

”There were almost 400 volunteers,” Wick said and Clarke looked at him in shock.

“What?” Bellamy asked, body tense beside her.

“Did you not know that?” Wick asked slowly, staring at them all. “Your mom got arrested,” he said, looking at Clarke.

“Because of the plan for me,” Raven said.

“She released Jake’s video,” Wick said and Clarke felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She stumbled back and Bellamy steadied her.

“My mom – she released – why? Why would she do that after what she did?”

“I don’t get it,” Wick said, looking confused. “She released the video and explained the plan for the culling. Too many people volunteered. Your flares were almost too late too.”

“My mom turned him in,” Clarke said. “She didn’t want people to know the truth.” She reached for Bellamy’s arm and held tight. “She’s the reason he’s dead.”

“I – I’m sorry,” Wick said, sounding genuine. “All I know is that she broadcast the video across the Ark and too many people volunteered.”

“I need to go find my mom,” Clarke said and turned for the door.

“I didn’t get her arrested,” she heard Raven say as she left.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said, catching up with her. He pulled her out of the main hallway and into the storage closet. As soon as the door was closed, he pulled her into his arms for a tight hug.

She tucked her face into him and hugged him equally as tight. “Why’d she do it now?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Bellamy said. “Maybe killing 300 people was the last straw.”

“But killing my dad wasn’t?” Clarke said and tears burned in her eyes. She sniffed. What was the difference between her dad’s life and 300 people other than time and quantity? “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said and pressed a kiss to the skin he could reach on her brow. “You don’t have to forgive her. Now or ever. I don’t know if I’m ever going to forgive my mom for what she did to me and O. If you want to forgive her, that’s okay.”

“I don’t – there’s too much right now,” she said. She couldn’t think about forgiveness when a peace treaty was on the line and her people might be getting tortured. There was too much going on outside her brain to allocate space _in_ her brain for that.

“That’s okay too,” Bellamy said, squeezing her tighter briefly. “Let’s go find her and Kane now, see what intel he has.”

“Okay,” she said, but didn’t move away for another minute.

Abby was in the Council Room and still wearing the Chancellor pin when they found her. “Guess that answers the question of who’s the Chancellor,” Bellamy said.

Abby looked up to them both. “I’m not stepping down until this is over,” she said. “Kane said the Commander wants to celebrate the truce tomorrow. Which points out the issue of supplies for us.”

“We need a lot of things if we’re going to survive the winter,” Bellamy said. “Food, shelter, warm enough clothes.”

“Well right now we can work on food,” Abby said. “We don’t know if Agro station survived reentry. We can hope that they did, but we need to prepare as if they didn’t.”

“Your guards have no idea how to hunt on the ground,” Bellamy said. “You can’t waste the bullets on animals. It scares away the game too. We can show them how to hunt. We also need to set traps for smaller game.”

“Send out a team for each of us,” Clarke said. “Or maybe sets of two. Me, Bellamy, Monroe, Finn, Sterling, and maybe Octavia if she’ll go.”

Abby nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. You want Finn out there though? You’ve been doing your best to keep him and Murphy away from the Grounders.”

“Finn’s our best tracker,” Bellamy said. “He just got it from the first moment on the ground. Maybe Murphy should go too. He is good with a blade.” Clarke rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. She remembered very clearly what it felt like when Murphy held a blade to her throat.

“I’ll go round up the guards that we can spare,” Abby said.

“Who’s on cooking duty? We can show them how to prep the meat. We’ve been making bone broth with the bones to help stretch the meat,” Clarke said. “We were making jerky for the winter too. There’s kudzu somewhere near here that we were eating too.”

“Should still be good,” Bellamy said. “Monty seemed to think so anyways. It’s maybe a couple hours away from here. Sunflowers might still be good too.” He looked to Clarke and she smiled at him, remembering the bright, vibrant flowers he’d brought her.

“Alright,” Abby said. “You go collect your friends. We’ll meet at the gates in twenty for you all to head out.”

Despite the fact that everyone had been gathered together less than half an hour before, it took a little while to track everyone down. Ultimately they gathered at the gates even if Octavia and Murphy seemed reluctant. Sergeant Miller was one of the assembled guards, but Clarke didn’t recognize anyone else. Not that she’d really known any of the guards on the Ark that well. She’d only known Sergeant Miller because she and Nate were the same age and they’d sort of been thrown together with Wells sometimes when they were young.

Some of the guards didn’t seem all that impressed with the teenagers before them. One of them flat out said, “This little girl is going to teach us how to hunt?” clearly aiming the comment at Monroe.

“Monroe’s terrifying,” Murphy said.

“Damn right I am,” she said.

“Each of you are going out in teams with two of them,” Abby said. “They are going to teach you how to hunt. We desperately need anything you bring back if we plan to survive the winter.”

“Sergeant Miller will divide you into teams, Abby said. Aside to Clarke she asked, “Do you know how to…field dress them?”

“We figured it out,” Clarke said. “Sterling’s pretty terrible at skinning.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, but it’s true,” Clarke said. “You are great at butchering. It’ll be fine, mom.”

“Everybody head back before sundown,” Bellamy said to the assembled teenagers. “Be alert and aware for fog, especially now that we know it’s a weapon. It doesn’t seem to matter that we’re almost eight hours away from the mountain. They’ve got pipes or something laid out. You know more than the guards about what animals are out there and what the landscape looks like. Raven’s going to work on some stuff for fishing and a smokehouse while we’re gone.”

“Wohoo,” Octavia said flatly.

“You know how to fish?” Abby asked.

“Took a lot of work, but we figured it out,” Bellamy said. “Raven’s actually pretty good at it.”

“You’re just cranky because you couldn’t figure out how to spear fish,” Monroe said.

“Okay,” Sergeant Miller said. “Four teams spread out away from the Grounder encampment on the hill. Three teams with two of us and two of you and one with three of us and only one of you.”

“Finn, you should take the three to show them how to track,” Clarke said. He didn’t look happy, but it really was a good idea. “I’ll take Murphy.”

“Dibs on Monroe,” Sterling said. She socked him in the arm.

“Roarke, Simmons, you’re with Clarke and Murphy. O’Neill, you’re with me and the Blakes. Phillips, Carter, you’re with the terrifying one,” Sergeant Miller said.

“I’m down with that nickname,” Monroe said.

“Dorsey, Johnson, Roxton, you’re with Finn. We’ll need trackers if we plan on surviving the winter,” Sergeant Miller finished. “If acid fog hits, leave the animals and worry about yourself. Alright, let’s go.”

Bellamy tugged on Clarke’s sleeve. “Hey, don’t get kidnapped this time,” he said.

“I’ll do my best,” Clarke said wryly. She glanced at Octavia. “She good to be out there?”

“I think Lincoln kicked her out of Medical,” he said. “We’ll see. She can take some anger out on boars and panthers.”

“Alright. I’ll see you later. Do you think they’re going to listen to us?”

“Miller’s dad probably will,” Bellamy said. “But we’ll see.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “Be back by full sundown.”

“You too,” she said and headed towards Murphy, Roarke, and Simmons. They set off in their assigned direction and she told them, “We should get a decent distance before we start. The noise here will probably keep the animals away. That’s what we found at the Dropship. A lot of the animals are mutated, so be prepared for that. The first deer I saw had two heads.”

Roarke looked surprised. “Are they…edible?”

“Panther tastes like shit, but the food didn’t kill any of us,” Murphy said. “Also it’s meat. It’s better than the soy shit from the Ark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing that didn't make sense on the show to me was that Bellamy at least went over 24 hours with little sleep between arriving at Mt. Weather, dragging Lincoln back, fixing Lincoln, and then hiding Finn. I assume Clarke slept a little while in the bunker with Finn, but they were all awake for a very long time. So I made Bellamy and Clarke pass out after meeting with Lexa. I also had no idea what to do with the time they spent hiding Finn if they, you know, weren't hiding him.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed some of the tags around given that Bellamy and Clarke are the major pairing and Raven and Wick aren't going to be a thing until they have sex when Bellamy's disabling the acid fog like in canon. And Monty and Miller aren't even in half the story.

By the time everyone returned to the Ark, they’d amassed a fairly decent haul. Rabbits, some deer, a few squirrels, and the Blake team had even managed to bring down a boar. And nobody came back injured, which given the boar and how poorly her last hunting trip had gone was pretty impressive.

Raven and Wick had put plans together for a smokehouse and Raven had bossed a bunch of people around for the right type of firewood. Some of the meat would probably turn into dinner, but they needed to start smoking meat for the winter when all the animals started hibernating.

Clarke lost track of Bellamy briefly while Monroe was showing the alarmed looking guards how to skin without ruining the pelts. They were going to need the pelts for winter too. Sterling had taken over butchering once Monroe was done with the skinning. The people he was showing looked a bit squeamish. Abby wandered over and looked intrigued though.

Clarke herself wandered over to the bonfire a few people were sitting around. She looked up from the flames to the Grounder tents barely visible in the dim light of the moon and their torchlight. A shiver went down her spine and she wrapped her arms around herself. She didn’t know why, but she was struck by a feeling of dread.

Arms came around her, each hand holding a cup of moonshine and she jumped. “Mm. Sorry,” Bellamy said and pressed a kiss to her cheek as he stood flush with her back.

She took one of the offered cups from him and he wrapped his now free arm around her waist. “My mother seems to be very interested in butchering,” she said.

“Well, she’s a doctor. Doubt it’d gross her out. You remember when Fox threw up on the rabbit?”

“Such a waste,” Clarke sighed. She took a drink from her cup and just stood there with him. “I feel like something bad is going to happen. Or it’s already happened. I don’t – I’m worried about our friends.”

“We’re going to save them,” Bellamy said. “I talked to Kane about the celebration or whatever tomorrow. Kane’s going, Abby’s probably going, and you’re invited. And you’re not going without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. He tightened his grip on her and pressed his lips to her brow, leaving them there. “Was Octavia okay out there?”

He shrugged behind her. “Lincoln made her leave. I think he’s still going through withdrawal symptoms.”

“I can talk to Jackson,” Clarke offered. “He doesn’t sugar coat things.”

“How’d your guards do today?” he asked. “Miller’s dad seems like he’s on our side. He was also willing to listen. O’Neill took a little convincing, but O’s a little more terrifying than Monroe right now.”

“Murphy wanted to know why I picked him,” Clarke said. “He thought it was to keep you two apart.”

“Was it?”

“It was more to keep you and Octavia together. He doesn’t seem to think I trust him. Which, I’m still working on it. But things were really terrible and…I don’t know. Roarke and Simmons were alright. They scared away a couple of mutated deer, but I think they’ll get it.” They spent a few moments in quiet comfort with one another. “What time is the celebration tomorrow?”

“I think it’s a lunch time thing,” Bellamy said. “There’s going to be a lot more of their people there than ours. We should bring Monroe. We might want to go hunting in the morning again.”

“Why do we keep having to wake up before daylight?” she groaned and knocked the rest of her moonshine back. “Come on, we should sleep.”

“When all of this is over, we’re going to spend an entire morning just sleeping in,” Bellamy said. “Maybe a day.”

They made their way over to the makeshift bar to drop their cups off. She saw Raven sitting at a table with Wick. Wick’s back was to Clarke, so she couldn’t see his expression, but Raven look half annoyed and half amused. Clarke waved at her and glanced at Wick’s back with a raised brow and a smirk. Raven scowled and Wick twisted to look. Clarke waved at him before Bellamy pulled her away and towards the Ark.

“What was that about?” Bellamy asked.

Clarke shrugged. She didn’t want to spill Wick’s secret. “You haven’t seen the way he looks at her?” she asked. That was safe.

“You think she’s going to do anything? He’s like the polar opposite of Finn.”

“Might be a good thing,” Clarke said.

“We’ll see. Or Raven won’t do anything,” Bellamy said. He pulled her into his side and leaned in close. “My shoulder and ribs don’t hurt anymore,” he murmured to her.

She shivered at the feeling of his breath on her skin and the surge of heat that went through her. She grabbed his hand and dragged him back towards the Ark. He let out a laugh and hurried to follow her. She was tempted to shove him into the first abandoned hallway or closet, but restrained herself and headed directly for their room. Bellamy crowded up close behind her, practically stepping on her heels. Absolutely everyone could obviously tell what they were planning on getting up to, but she didn’t really care.

As soon as they were in their room Clarke slammed Bellamy up against a wall, hands fisted in his jacket and lips on his. He laughed and flipped them, pressing her up against the wall instead. “Someone’s eager.”

“You remember that one time back behind the dropship when you hiked my thigh up,” Clarke asked and as she started to lift her leg, he reached down to bring it up and wrap it around his waist. “It was like nine in the morning and you were basically fucking me through our clothes and then—”

“Sterling smashed his finger and we didn’t get back to it until later that night,” Bellamy finished.

“I’ve been thinking about it since then,” Clarke said. She ran her hands up his torso to push his jacket off his shoulders. “We should be a hell of a lot more naked right now.”

“I like the sound of that,” Bellamy said. He let her leg fall to the floor and pulled his shirt off. Clarke couldn’t help herself and ran her hands up his torso again, but this time to draw him closer and kiss him. “Thought you wanted to get naked,” he mumbled against her lips.

“Shut up and take your pants off,” Clarke said and started shoving both her pants and underwear down her legs. She’d work on her jacket and shirt later.

He laughed and as soon as they were both pants free his fingers went to her center and groaned. “Jesus, Clarke. You’re so wet.”

“Told you, I’ve been thinking about this,” Clarke said and shrugged out of her jacket. He helped to pull her shirt off. Their hands fumbled against each other as they tried to take her bra off. Clarke laughed, giving up, and let Bellamy finish taking it off of her. “I didn’t – before the Skybox when I thought about sex, I didn’t think it would involve laughing.”

“Sex is fun,” Bellamy said, hitching her leg up to his waist again. “Or at least it should be.” His other hand tangled into her hair as he leaned in to kiss her. They kissed for a few moments, far less urgent than before, and he lazily ground his cock against her. “I like that I can laugh during sex with you, that we’re figuring out what we like. I never had that before.”

“If I told any of our friends that you’re sentimental they would not believe me,” Clarke said. “Everyone thinks you’re the big, bad, tough guy who is a badass but you’re the sentimental guy who thinks with his heart.”

“I am a badass,” Bellamy said. “And I love you, I’m allowed to think with my heart.”

“I love you too,” Clarke said. “Now let’s get to the part where you fuck me against a wall.”

Bellamy grinned at her and pressed a swift kiss to her lips, nipping them as he pulled back. “As the Queen commands.” The hand in her hair trailed down her body, tweaking her nipple, towards her clit. He pulled his hips away from hers as his fingers reached her and rubbed at her clit briefly before he dragged his fingers down and into her. Two fingers from the get-go was a bit of a stretch, but it felt good. “Jesus how did you get this wet just _thinking_ about this?” he asked.

“I like your muscles and I liked making out with you against the dropship,” she said. “Just put your dick in me already.”

“You sure?” he asked, flicking her clit with his thumb.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Clarke said. He ignored her, continuing to rock his fingers inside of her. “Bellamy, _please_.”

“Alright, sweetheart,” he said, dipping his head down to kiss her. He trailed his fingers down her thigh and lifted it to wrap around his waist. He grasped her thigh and slid into her slowly. She groaned into his mouth at the stretch and when he paused, she dug the fingers of one hand into his ass. “Jesus, Clarke. We’re gonna go slow for a little bit here, okay? You barely let me prep you.”

“I want you,” she said and tried to lift her other leg up, but he slid into her a few more inches and he pushed her leg back down to the floor. “You’re supposed to be holding me against a wall.”

“And I will,” he said in exasperation. “Just give me a minute. You’re shorter than I am so we’re going to have to adjust anyways. Patience is a virtue.”

“And lust is a sin,” she said, running the hand not on his ass down his chest. “So, who’s really winning here?”

“We both will if you wait. I really did create a monster our first time,” Bellamy said and sank all the way in her. “Let’s get you up a little higher.” It took a moment of fumbling and her rising to her toes with the leg not around Bellamy’s waist, but soon both her legs were around him and his hands were under her thighs. 

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “You gonna move or what, Bellamy?” she asked, clenching around him. Bellamy slid out of her, though not as far as he usually would have and pressed back in slowly. She hissed out a breath and shifted her hips experimentally.

Bellamy grunted and said, “Please don’t do that. I really, really don’t want to drop you.”

“You’re not going to drop me,” Clarke said, gripping his biceps. “Now move.” She pressed a heel into his ass.

“You’re so demanding,” he said and kissed her before thrusting back in. Despite the fact that they’d had sex with him on top of her, the angle this time was different. He was warm and with the way he was pressed against her she felt surrounded by him despite the cool metal wall at her back. His grip on her thighs was firm and tight and she knew it was going to bruise, but it felt good.

Her nails dug into his biceps as he fucked into her harder. He broke away from her lips to pant into her neck. She tilted her hips slightly, arching her back and let out a gasp as his next thrust pressed against something inside of her, something she was pretty sure neither of them had managed to hit before. “Do that again,” she said.

“You like that?” he asked and thrust again, hitting that same spot. She groaned out and raked her nails down his back. “That’s right, sweetheart.” He began to suck a bruise into her shoulder, the scrape of his teeth sending shivers of pleasure down her spine.

Her back started to shift and slide up and down the wall slightly with every thrust as he slammed into her. She tugged at his hair and rolled her hips into his next thrust, wrapping herself more tightly around him.

“Love you so much,” he panted into her neck. One of his hands slipped from where it was bracing her thigh and he fumbled for a second. His thrusts started to lose rhythm and he only managed to hit that spot inside of her every few thrusts.

He came first, slamming against her and groaning out her name. She squirmed against him to try and get her fingers down to her clit. “Just a second,” he panted and a few seconds later he shifted his grip and said, “Arm around my neck.” Once her arm was securely around his neck he pulled away from the wall. She let out a little squeak as he walked them over to their bed.

The descent to the bed was a little less than graceful and her breath wooshed out as she fell to the mattress. Bellamy did his best not to land on her, but it was a close call. She giggled and dragged him into a kiss. He shifted and ran his free hand down her body.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmured. “You didn’t come yet.”

She wasn’t unsatisfied with the sex they’d just had, but she did want to come. The pleasure that had been coiling within her had settled into warm heat. He slowly pressed three fingers into her and crooked them up. She jolted as he found the same spot as before, crying out.

“That’s good?” he asked, a calculating look in his eyes.

“There, again,” she said, rocking her hips into his fingers. He pressed that spot again and she darted a hand down to her clit, circling around it.

“I said I was going to take care of you,” he said and pulled her hand away, drawing a whine from her throat. To her complete shock, he slid down her body and sealed his lips over her clit. She genuinely hadn’t expected that he’d do that after he’d come inside of her.

He worked her back up quickly, thrusting his fingers and pressing up while he lashed his tongue over her clit. She rolled her hips into him and reached down to wind her fingers through his hair. The orgasm hit fast and strong and she whimpered and whined through it as he didn’t let up until he’d worked her back up and sent her hurtling through another orgasm.

When she was able to think again he was still between her thighs, smiling at her fondly. Her grasp on his hair, which had fallen lax, tightened and she gently tugged him up. He made a detour to her mark, pressing a gentle kiss to it before he moved to rest next to her.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“No, I did,” he said smugly. His thumb idly stroked over her mark. “I like making you come. I know you can take care of yourself, but I like doing it too.”

“I meant you didn’t have to do _that_ ,” she said, looking away. She hoped she wasn’t blushing, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t that lucky. She didn’t even know why she felt embarrassed. It wasn’t like she felt embarrassed about anything they’d done together. There was just something about this that made her feel…squirmy.

“I like doing _that_ ,” Bellamy said. “I like how I can make you feel. I like how you taste. I’m pretty sure I’d eat you out for hours if you’d let me.”

That actually made her squirm at the thought. “But you, you just – it wasn’t weird?”

“What are you talking about?” Bellamy asked, sounding confused. She hesitantly raised her gaze to meet his. “I don’t – is this because I’d already come?” She looked away again and he drew her face to meet his gaze. “Hey, I don’t care about that. I like eating you out and I love you. The rest doesn’t matter.”

“I love you too,” she said and rolled onto her side to kiss him. They continued lazily for a few minutes without any real heat or intention behind it.

He pulled back and nestled her into his chest before tugging the panther pelt over them. “Did you like it? Up against the wall?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed, tucking herself more firmly under his arm and slung her own around his waist. “I missed you touching me. But I liked how you were pressed against me.”

“I missed touching you too,” Bellamy said. “But I liked it too.”

“What’s your favorite so far?” she asked, hiding a yawn into his chest. “I like it when you’re pressed against me. It feels like you’re surrounding me. And when you’re touching me.” Why didn’t she feel embarrassed about this?

“I like touching you too,” Bellamy said. “And I like seeing you, how you’re reacting. And I like seeing your mark. I like it when you’re on top best.”

Clarke pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder and chuckled. “That feels like a very stereotypical male response. But I like it too. I like everything we’ve done.” She thought for a moment. “We’ve never done it where I’m on top and you’re laying down. You’d definitely get to see me.”

“We’ll do that next. And try to find a table with the right height that we can borrow.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she sighed and settled into Bellamy.

The next morning Clarke woke to find Bellamy was yet again pinning her to the bed. She wasn’t sure if he’d woken her up with how he was stroking gently over the skin of her hip. The feeling was different than how she’d woken up with him at the Dropship simply because they were both naked. The only other time they’d fallen asleep naked she’d been woken by nightmares and hadn’t had the chance to enjoy Bellamy’s sleep warmed skin. At the Dropship they’d always tugged at least some of their clothes back on. With their luck, Grounders would have attacked while they were naked. Thinking about it, she thought they were lucky nothing had happened while they were having sex at the Dropship.

“When are we going hunting?” she asked, stretching out as much as she could under his comforting weight before running a hand down his back.

“Soon,” he said. “We have time for breakfast if you want. We shouldn’t go far though. We’re due at the Grounder camp at midday for our meeting.”

“Should we take different guards?”

“To the meeting? Kane doesn’t want us to bring guards. Says it’ll look bad. Which I don’t like. He wants it to just be the two Chancellors, us, and Octavia said she and Lincoln are coming.”

“I meant hunting,” Clarke said. “We’re not bringing guards?” It did make sense. They were celebrating their truce, after all.

“I have a bad feeling today, about all of this,” Bellamy said. He nuzzled into her, stubble scraping against her skin. She liked the feeling though.

“Everything’ll be fine. They need this as much as we do to get everyone out.” She lightly pushed at his shoulder. “Now come on, we need to get up.” Bellamy groaned, but rolled off of her and pushed up to a seated position. She stood and went to get their clothes, but turned when he gasped. “What?”

“I hurt you,” he said.

“No you didn’t,” she said, frowning. “I don’t feel anything.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but she didn’t hurt from any of it.

“You have bruises in the shape of my fingers on the backs of your thighs.”

She twisted, looking down to see there were indeed bruises from where he had gripped her thighs the night before. “I don’t mind,” she shrugged. “I like it when you mark me. I like marking you up too.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Bellamy said, reaching tentatively for the back of her thigh.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. He still looked upset, so she knelt down at his side. “Hey,” she said, taking his face in her hands. “I promise it doesn’t hurt. I promise you’ve never hurt me. And I do like them.”

Bellamy turned to press a kiss to her palm and sighed. “My mom…the men she was with…She was protecting Octavia, but she let them hurt her.”

“Oh Bellamy,” she said. “You’re not – you’d never hurt me. _Never_. I mean it. And even if you did, I’d let you know and you’d stop. I trust you.”

Bellamy dropped his forehead to her shoulder. “I don’t want to be like the guards on the Ark.”

“You’re not. And not all of them were bad. Miller’s dad isn’t bad. But you’re not like that. I promise you.” She ran her hand through his hair for a few moments before she said, “And I also mean it when I say that I don’t mind them. I like them.”

“I know you mean it,” he said. “And I like seeing them on you. And when you mark me.”

“While I was in Mount Weather,” she started and felt him go still. “I – all I had was our soulmark and the marks you’d left on me. They were comforting.” She thought back to crying herself to sleep while she pressed against the bruises over her soulmark.

“Okay,” Bellamy said and pressed a kiss to her throat. “Let’s get dressed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh look. It's an update after a month and a half. I've been struggling with one scene for two months in chapter 25. It's literally just the first day of working with the Coalition and Lexa to take down the mountain before they hear Jasper's message. It's literally just that. I mean, the ADHD hyperfixation has decided it wants to focus on what happens AFTER the end of season 2. I know how the rest of this story is going to go, what's going on inside the mountain right now (again, the timeline of the show is bullshit), but not how to do that bit. I have no idea how long this is going to be, but my Word doc is currently 129,785 words. Other than the Power Rangers project I was working on for Nanowrimo the year I turned 18, this is the longest thing I've ever written. 
> 
> Anyways, Clarke is feeling dread at the beginning of the chapter because that night is the night Cage and Tsing take Harper while the others are breaking into Dante's office.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My buffer space is rapidly disappearing.

Hours later, after some decent hunting but not nearly enough to feed the Ark, she and Bellamy headed out to meet the others at the gate. She’d told him about the no weapons policy, but he’d tucked one of the knives into his pants anyways. The sight reminded her to go find the firewood crew and get his axe back no matter what her mother or Kane thought. She’d found it and given it to Bellamy. That made it his. If he wasn’t allowed to carry a rifle around anymore, he was getting that axe back.

When they reached the gates everyone else was already waiting for them. Octavia had Lincoln’s sword strapped to her back and Clarke idly wondered if Lincoln even _wanted_ it back from her. Kane was there, a pack over one shoulder, standing and talking to her mother and Raven. Raven didn’t look happy, arms crossed and a frown firmly in place. Finn, Monroe, and Sterling were standing amidst the small group too.

“Finn doesn’t think he’s coming with us, does he?” Bellamy murmured to her.

“If he does, he’s not coming,” she said back as Octavia walked to meet them.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said.

“Neither do I,” Bellamy said, glancing at the Grounders waiting for them on the other side of the gate. He looked back to his sister. “I think we’re wasting time with politics when our friends are in trouble.”

“We need help,” Finn said. “They need help.”

“We tried peace with the Grounders before,” Bellamy said.

“Well, Jasper did shoot at them that time,” Octavia said.

“Are we ready?” Kane asked, looking over to the cluster of teenagers. “We don’t want to keep the Commander waiting.”

Finn and Sterling took a step back away from the group. Raven glanced in Kane and Abby’s direction before looking back at Clarke and Bellamy. “Don’t get murdered.”

“We’ll do our best,” Octavia said dryly and followed Kane’s lead out of Camp Jaha.

“Are we going to rename the camp now that Jaha isn’t dead?” Clarke murmured to Bellamy as they followed the rest out. One of the Grounders waited until they had passed to follow behind them. Bellamy shifted so that he was a step behind Clarke, putting himself at the rear.

“I still think this is useless,” Bellamy said, mostly under his breath.

“We need their army to get to Mount Weather and you know it,” she said equally quietly.

“Their army has been getting their ass kicked by Mount Weather forever and _you_ know it,” he said. “I’ve been thinking. What we need is an inside man. Someone to be our eyes and ears.”

She looked at him in alarm. The only person he would send in would be himself. He wouldn’t think of risking anyone else. “No,” she said, loud enough that her mom looked back briefly. “No, it’s too dangerous.” He didn’t know what it was like in that mountain. She couldn’t let him go in there with what she knew.

He sighed. “Clarke. If you can make it out, I can make it in.”

“I said no,” she said sharply.

“Since I don’t take orders from you, I’m going to need a better reason,” he said, but he sounded confused at her vehemence.

“I can’t lose you,” she said, aware of the Grounders now around them. “We’re a team, partners. I can’t lose you to that mountain. Those people are monsters.” She grabbed his arm and squeezed. “I can’t lose you. Not when we’ve had so little time.”

His expression softened from his frown. “It’s our best bet,” he said softly. “And they’re _our_ people. We should be the ones to do it.”

“We will. But not like that.”

They reached the Commander’s tent and Gustus standing in front of it. He held out a wire bin. Lincoln stepped forward and dropped a large knife into it. Octavia reluctantly stepped forward and took the sword from her back. Monroe dropped a pistol – where had she even gotten that? – and a few knives into it, a scowl etched on her face. Kane handed over his bag and Gustus shoved the basket at another Grounder so he could search through it before handing it back.

Bellamy very reluctantly dropped the knife he’d pocketed into the bin. When the Grounder looked to Clarke, she just shrugged. “I didn’t bring any weapons.” Bellamy sighed next to her.

The flap of the Commander’s tent opened, and Indra stepped out, followed by the Commander, black face paint standing out against her skin. One of their escorts through the camp stepped towards her and spoke quietly, his back to them. Her expression didn’t change during the exchange. Once the escort had stepped aside, Gustus murmured something to the Commander as well. The glance she sent him as she responded had the barest trace of irritation. Gustus nodded at her and stepped through the flap into the tent. Indra looked over them, sneering when she reached Lincoln. Octavia bristled, but didn’t say anything.

There were other Grounders inside the tent, hovering around the entrance behind the Commander and Indra. Bellamy stiffened and she glanced at him before the Commander began speaking. “You are welcome here,” she said before turning and stepping back into the tent. The Grounders clustered behind her parted.

The inside of the tent had changed since the last time Clarke had been there. The throne was gone, replaced by two tables creating one long table covered in food. A whole hog’s head, some berries she hadn’t seen before, squash, and some sort of bread. Clarke felt her mouth water as she looked at it.

The others in the tent had gathered around the table and walls of the tent, leaving a large gap opposite where Gustus stood next to two empty seats. Some of the Grounders seemed only wary of their presence, but some were looking downright hostile. As they approached the table, Bellamy swooped in front of Kane to take the seat next to Clarke instead. Kane seemed surprised, but took the seat across from Gustus instead of the Commander easily enough. Clarke was directly across from Indra, with Octavia, then Lincoln, then her mother, and then Monroe down the left side of the table.

Kane held out a bundle of cloth he pulled from his pack. The object inside was large, but Clarke couldn’t make it out until he unwrapped it, revealing a rounded glass bottle partially filled with clear liquid. She wondered how the bottle had survived reentry. “We drink this on special occasions,” Kane said. “I believe this qualifies.”

Clarke didn’t roll her eyes, but it was close. It was booze. As if Grounders didn’t have that. Hell, they were currently using a sixteen-year old’s still, and the Grounders definitely had actual grain given the bread on the table rather than whatever Monty had managed to scrounge up at the dropship. As the liquid sloshed around in the bottle, Clarke thought bringing Monty’s moonshine hadn’t necessarily been Kane’s best idea. It was basically battery acid.

The Commander nodded at Gustus without breaking eye contact with Kane. Gustus took the bottle from Kane, looking far from impressed. He handed it over to the Commander.

“Thank you, Marcus of the Sky People,” she said.

“You’re welcome, Lexa kom Trikru,” Kane said, stumbling over the end.

Lexa. That seemed too normal a name for the Commander of the Grounders. Though, honestly, Octavia was named after a Roman Emperor’s sister, there was Terra, she had a boy’s name with a random E thrown on the end, and one of the Council members that hadn’t made it to the ground was named Supernova. So maybe normal names didn’t mean much.

It did, however, seem inappropriate to use her actual name in such a formal, highly charged setting.

“Just, uh, don’t drink too much of it,” Kane added.

Now it took all of Clarke’s willpower not to roll her eyes. Jesus. Could he be any more patronizing? It was booze and they had to know about hangovers.

Lexa looked to her. “Clarke, let us drink together.”

“It would be my pleasure,” she said, and Bellamy shifted slightly beside her.

One of the other Grounders stepped forward from against the side of the tent, two goblets in hand. He handed them to Gustus and Lexa poured the moonshine in herself before picking the two goblets up. She leaned forward across the table to offer one to Clarke.

“Heda, allow me,” Gustus said and Lexa raised the goblet to him without taking her eyes off of Clarke. The focus felt a little uncomfortable.

Gustus drank from the goblet and from the corner of her eye, Clarke could see he was staring firmly at Kane. When nothing happened, Lexa took the goblet back. She had continued to stare at Clarke the whole time. She wasn’t smiling, but her expression had almost softened slightly. Bellamy shifted again, pressing his arm against hers as Lexa finally broke eye contact to look around the table.

“Tonight we celebrate our new found peace. Tomorrow we plan our war.” She raised her goblet to Clarke. “To those we’ve lost. And to those we shall soon find.” Clarke raised her own goblet.

Before she could take a drink, Gustus collapsed onto the table, drawing everyone’s shocked attention. She stared at him, confused and stunned. He looked up to her just as Bellamy grabbed at her arm, knocking the goblet from her hand, and started to pull her behind him.

Gustus was coughing and groaning. Clarke could only stare. What was happening? Lexa looked concerned and confused as Gustus pushed away from the table and stumbled back against the wall of the tent. The others reached out to support him as he collapsed to the floor. Clarke clutched at the back of Bellamy’s jacket. A hand grasped at her arm and she jerked, but it was her mother. She looked scared.

“It’s poison,” she heard Nyko say. She hadn’t even realized he was there.

Indra drew her sword and shouted, “It’s the Sky People!”

Bellamy fully pushed her back behind him as she stared in shock and horror. Poison? Who would have done this? The tables spun and shoved away, opening the space between the two groups. Octavia, Lincoln, and Monroe moved, surrounding Clarke and her mother. Clarke lunged forward, Bellamy’s arm holding her back. Abby grabbed at her and tried to pull her back into the protective circle.

“This wasn’t us!” Clarke shouted desperately. “You have to know it wasn’t us,” she pleaded to Lexa.

Lexa was clearly furious as she knelt at Gustus’s side, who was now foaming at the mouth. She shouted something in the other language and Gustus was hauled away and out of the tent, Nyko at his side.

Indra said something too and the Grounders came for them, dragging them apart from one another and began patting them down. Bellamy struggled as he was pulled from her and Clarke tried to convey the idea of cooperation as they locked eyes. Struggling wasn’t going to help anyone.

“No. No, we didn’t do this,” she said to Lexa.

“Gustus warned me about you,” Lexa said fiercely, eyes cold. “But I didn’t listen.”

“Lexa _please_.”

The Grounders didn’t find anything on them that could’ve been used as poison because they _hadn’t done this_ , but stood menacingly at them none the less. As soon as he was released, Bellamy moved back towards her, standing protectively in front of her.

“Did you poison the bottle?” Lexa asked Kane.

“No, of course not. Why would I do that when we’re trying to broker peace to save all our people from the Mountain?”

Bellamy scoffed and drew Lexa’s angry gaze. Clarke reached for the back of his jacket. “No Sky People leave this tent!” she shouted and stormed out. The other Grounders followed after, Indra glaring daggers at them all. It was just fabric and hides, but the sound of the tent flaps slapping shut sounded threatening.

“Well shit,” Bellamy said. She reached for his hand and laced their fingers together. He turned, pulling her into him and squeezed her hand.

Kane pulled Abby to the other side of the tent and began speaking quietly to her. “What do we do now?” Octavia asked, looking at Lincoln.

“Can we escape?” Bellamy asked.

“Into the middle of a Ground encampment,” Clarke said. “Surrounded by a bunch of warriors who are now on high alert because they think we tried to kill their leader. It doesn’t matter how close we are to the guards behind the wall. We’re surrounded.”

“She’s right,” Monroe said

“Well, we’ve got to try something,” Bellamy said. He squeezed her hand again and moved away to examine the walls of the tent and how they were secured to the ground. Lincoln drew Octavia away to one of the tables, leaving Clarke with Monroe.

Clarke looked towards where the bottle of moonshine was sitting. Someone had poisoned it. There were things in Medical that could have worked as a poison, but she knew that hadn’t done it, so it didn’t really matter what was in Medical. So how had Gustus been poisoned? Was it actually poison or was he just having a terrible reaction to Monty’s battery acid? Could something else cause him to foam at the mouth?

“Kane?” she asked. He looked over towards her. “Who knew you had the moonshine?”

“Just the young woman working at the bar,” he said. “Lexa has to understand that we didn’t do this. She needs this alliance as much as we do. She’s shown herself to be flexible. She listens to you.”

Bellamy scoffed. “Monroe was right. She listens to Clarke because she thinks Clarke’s hot.”

“What?” Lincoln asked, though Clarke felt like echoing the question. Bellamy couldn’t possibly think that.

“She’s doing a slightly less intense version of Spacewalker’s mooning,” Bellamy said, turning to face them.

“I thought she was imitating you,” Clarke said, reminding him of Monroe’s assesment. “Though I don’t see it.”

“She is,” Monroe said.

“You’re saying that the Commander of the Grounder army is, what attracted to my daughter?” Abby asked, sounding bewildered.

“Well she is hot,” Monroe said, causing Clarke to blush. “There was a lot of suspicious staring on the way to the dropship that didn’t need to include staring at Clarke’s ass.”

Clarke felt like her face was on fire and deeply uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. “She thinks we tried to kill her.”

“But we know we didn’t,” Kane said.

“And how exactly is that supposed to help us?” Octavia asked.

“We figure out who did poison Gustus, who would want her dead,” Kane said, looking at Lincoln.

“Too many to count,” he said. “Forming an alliance with you was a risk.”

“So it had to be someone that wanted to break the alliance,” Octavia said.

“Or the girl at the bar was trying to poison _you_ ,” Bellamy said, looking at Kane.

“I doubt it,” he said, but he did look over at the bottle. Abby went to pick it up and uncorked it. 

“Mom,” Clarke said. “Someone may actually have poisoned it at the camp. Some people there don’t like the alliance either.” _Like Jaha_ she thought, but she didn’t honestly think Jaha would try to poison Kane or the Commander like this.

Her mother looked at her. “I know.” She picked up an empty cup from the table and poured a small amount of moonshine into it. She smelled the contents of the bottle and winced before putting the cork back in. Then she took the smallest of tastes from the cup. “If it is poisoned, it’s well masked by the taste and the smell.”

“You get used to it,” Octavia shrugged.

Clarke kept looking at the cup in her mother’s hand.

“We can wait a couple of minutes since that’s what happened to him,” Abby said. “But how do you poison someone if the poison isn’t in the drink?”

Clarked looked at the goblet Bellamy had knocked out of her hand where it lay on the ground. They’d provided the moonshine. Lexa had poured it herself. But the goblets…She walked over and picked up it before moving to Bellamy’s side where he was standing next to a candelabra on a pedestal. She needed better lighting for this.

“Clarke?” her mother asked.

She turned the cup, looking into it. She couldn’t see anything, but whatever substance might’ve been couldn’t have been a powder or a liquid. Lexa would have seen it before she poured any moonshine in. And it had to be in both goblets, no one could have known which would be for Lexa. Or maybe it was just one. If one of their people died – either Kane or her mother as the leaders or herself as the one who got the alliance – the alliance would also be in jeopardy.

Bellamy followed her when she moved over to where Lexa’s goblet had fallen to the ground. She picked it up but couldn’t immediately see anything in it either. Maybe it had been a coating to the inside of the cup.

“You think so?” Bellamy asked, clearly on the same page. She nodded as she peered into the cup. Was there something in there?

“Think what?” Kane asked.

“The cups,” Clarke said and ran her index finger around the inside of Lexa’s goblet. It felt sticky in a way that the moonshine residue shouldn’t yet. She held her finger up to look at it and was about to smell the residue when Bellamy grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t,” he said. “Can you try to not poison yourself?”

“I wasn’t going to taste it,” she said.

“So one of the Grounders poisoned the cups?” Octavia asked. She looked to Lincoln. “Who here would want the alliance gone?”

“Almost everyone,” he said. “The alliance threatens the coalition, which was hard enough for the Heda to get. Though since it threatens the alliance it probably wasn’t anyone from Azgeda since they don’t like the coalition to start with.”

“The coalition?” Abby asked.

“The Heda is the first to unite the twelve tribes,” Lincoln said. “Some don’t like the coalition, like Queen Nia of Azgeda, but many people do. It’s brought more peace than anyone’s seen in their lifetimes.”

“The _twelve_ tribes,” Bellamy said slowly. “Like the twelve villages?”

“Queen?” Monroe asked.

“Twelve tribes,” Lincoln said. “This is Trikru territory. The Heda’s from here originally. “There’s also Azgeda, Sankru, Yujleda, Ouskejon Kru, Delfikru, Trishane Kru, Podakru, Igranorona Kru, Boudalan Kru, Louwoda Kliron, and Floukru.”

Clarke stared at him in disbelief. There were that many groups of Grounders? How far did they reach? Why was the Mountain such a threat if there were apparently that many of them out there? Especially if Lexa had united them all.

“Floukru are the ones at the ocean,” Octavia said.

“So there’s a lot more people than we thought that might want to kill Lexa,” Kane said.

 _There’s a lot more_ people _than we thought_ Clarke thought.

“Be glad you didn’t land in Azgeda territory far to the north,” Lincoln said.

 _How far north?_ Clarke wondered as she exchanged a glance with Bellamy. Well, their situation had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewriting this was a nightmare. For a week I had them going to TonDC, but I couldn't figure out WHY they'd go, or WHY Raven would go if Finn wasn't dead. And I just am very annoyed by what I realized upon rewatch for this is probably supposed to be a DC metro station, but that's not even remotely what DC metro stations look like. You can Google it and see that. Also we don't have metal gate things at our metro. Also, where are all the abandoned metro stations? Anyways, this was a nightmare even after I settled on having it happen at Arkadia. I had to figure out why Raven would go and why Gustus would frame her. It was a mess. But ultimately I'm happy with how it turned out.
> 
> I also just really love how Marcus clearly thought Lexa had never had booze before. Booze is pretty easy to make and the DMV is littered with wineries and distilleries. The farmers markets in my area of Maryland ALWAYS have at least two companies selling alcohol. We straight up had a wine festival at our local fairgrounds for like five years running. Grounders definitely have booze. 
> 
> So instead of working on THE ONE SCENE, I started working on two different fics so this is apparently a series now. One that takes place in the spring/summer following this and then one that takes place a couple years later. So now I have to come up with a series title.


End file.
